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The Women's Rights Movement in Iran

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The Women's Rights Movement in Iran Ahmad 1 The Thunder of Their Roar: The Women’s Rights Movement in Iran Interviewer: Catherine Ahmad Interviewee: Mahnaz Afkhami Date: 2/13/13 Instructor: Mr. Haight Ahmad 2 Ahmad 3 Table of Contents Interviewee release form…………………………………………………..2 Interviewer release form…………………………………………………..3 Statement of Purpose……………………………………………………...4 Biography…………………………………………………………………5 Historical Contextualization……………………………………………...8 Interview Transcription………………………………………………….25 Audio Time Indexing Log……………………………………………….61 Interview Analysis………………………………………………………62 Appendix………………………………………………………………...70 Works Consulted………………………………………………………...76 Ahmad 4 Statement of Purpose The purpose of this project was to learn more about the women’s rights movement in Iran and to focus on how the establishment of the Islamic Republic impacted the cultural changes that were already underway. The interview with Mahnaz Afkhami provides the perspective of a woman who helped enact many different innovative changes prior to the Iranian Revolution of 1979. It is my hope that the readers of this project will be left with a better understanding of the women’s rights movement within Iran and the historical context of the events. In this way, they might be able recognize many different historical misunderstandings and challenge those stereotypes. Ahmad 5 Biography Mahnaz Afkhami was born in 1941 in Kerman, Iran. From some time, she lived in a large house with her grandparents and some members of her extended family. When she was eleven, her mother separated from her father. Soon after, she came to the US with her mother and two other siblings and lived in Seattle and San Franciso. She would go on to study at the University of Colorado, where she received a M.A. in English Literature. Mrs. Afkhami followed her mother’s example and worked various jobs, including as a sales clerk at a dime store to finance her education. In 1959, she married and would later have a son. By 1967, she decided to move back to Iran and became a professor of Literature at the National University of Iran. Two years later she became chair of the Department of English. She founded the Association of University Women and was drawn into Iran's women's movement. In 1970 she became the Secretary Ahmad 6 General of the Women's Organization of Iran. She remained at the head of the WOI for ten years during which she worked for Iranian women's rights. She worked with tens of thousands of women throughout the country to help discover and advocate women’s needs and priorities, and map out an efficient strategy for success. Steering through a difficult terrain between the growing fundamentalist movement, the patriarchal government bureaucracy, and the aspirations of women who wished to achieve rights but did not want to abandon their cultural and religious roots, they succeeded in putting women’s issues at the forefront of national concerns. Following a year of activism during International Women’s Year in 1975, she was asked to join the cabinet and hold the newly created national-level post of Minister for Women’s Affairs—the second woman in the world to hold that position after Françoise Giroux of France and the first in the Muslim world. Using her new position, she helped create legislation that advanced and combined the achievements of the family laws of 1967. At the time of the revolution, Mrs. Afkhami was in New York negotiating the terms of the contract for the establishment of United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) in Iran. The revolutionary government confiscated her house, her papers, her pictures, and mementos. The Ayatollahs put her on the death list, charging her with “corruption on earth and warring with God.” She wrote a book, Women in Exile, on the lives of twelve women from different regions and different socio-political, cultural, and religious backgrounds who were forced to leave their country. She later joined the advisory board of the women’s division of Human Rights Watch. She helped build the Sisterhood Is Global Institute, which she served for over ten years as vice- president, executive director, and president. The manuals she co-authored on human rights Ahmad 7 education, “Claiming Our Rights: A Manual for Women’s Human Rights Education in Muslim Societies and Safe and Secure: Eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls in Muslim Societies”, use culture friendly materials and dialogue-based methodologies. When her term at Sisterhood is Global Institute was completed in 2000, supported by colleagues and friends, Mrs. Afkhami founded a new organization– Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP). In 2001, she co-authored “Leading to Choices: A Leadership Training Handbook for Women”. This handbook being used as a tool to bring awareness of individual human rights, the importance of believing in the individual’s capacity to impact his or her environment, and the need to work with others to change life conditions for oneself, one’s family, and community. In 2002, Mahnaz published an anthology of articles entitled “Toward a Compassionate Society”, which addresses issues of conflict resolution and peace building. Her books Faith and Freedom, Muslim Women and the Politics of Participation, In the Eye of the Storm, and Women and the Law in Iran address the social forces that bind rights, freedom, and gender equality with politics, religion, and culture. Mrs. Afkhami currently lives with her husband in Bethesda, Maryland. Ahmad 8 The Dawn of Freedom: Women’s Rights in Iran During the time of her execution, Farrokhroo Parsay, the first female cabinet minister of the Iranian government, wrote a letter to her children. She wrote, “I’m a doctor. I know what it means to die, that it takes only a minute. I’m not afraid of that. What I’m afraid of is to be pressured into denying 50 years of service to women” (Afkhami : Executed but not Forgotten 2). Farrokhroo Parsay died shortly thereafter in 1980 at the period of time when the women’s rights movement in Iran was coming to a halt due to the people in power. The women’s rights movement in Iran began around 1905 and has gone through many periods of progression and digression within the last 100 years. In the beginning of the movement, women worked to establish organizations and newspapers but as time went on, their influence began to grow and change. Soon, women began to participate in international conferences and become members of Parliament. By the 1960’s to the 1970’s, women were finally able to achieve many different political rights but many were soon lost to the establishment of the Islamic Republic. To comprehend the women’s rights movement in Iran, especially during the Islamic Revolution, one must examine the period of 1905-1941, events that took place during 1942-1965, and lastly look at what occurred during the 1966-1983 timeframe. It is also necessary to consider the external influences of Iran during the 1800s which serve as a backdrop for the Iranian women’s movement. During the 19th century, Iran began to become heavily influenced by European power and society since European forces, advisors, and goods began to infiltrate the country and alter the mindset of Iranian ideology. As a result, a Constitutional Revolution within Iran began to create a sense of order. As Iranians became more exposed to European ideals and customs, educated Ahmad 9 men and women began to recognize the oppressive conditions of women and acknowledged that their own societal practices were in need of revision. Constitutionalists like Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani, Shaykh Ahmad Ruhi, Mirza Malkum Khan and Mirza Fath Ali Akhundzadeh wrote about women’s right to education and the ills of polygamy and seclusion. Similar ideals about such topics were also raised through Qurrat al-Ain (Tahereh) which was a part of the Babi movement that flourished during the mid- 19th century.1 As this was taking place, women became involved in organized political movements for the first time when food riots occurred. These protests concerned the opposition to the Reuter concession of 1872, and the Tobacco Protest (1891–1892). The Tobacco Protest was the first organized political opposition by Iranian merchants, intellectuals, and clergy to the Qajar dynasty and foreign domination of the Iranian economy (Mahdi 427-428). These protests signaled the change that the Iranian people had undergone and sowed the seeds of the Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911). In her account of the Women’s Organization of Iran, Mahnaz Afkhami summarizes the life of an Iranian woman and the reasoning behind their desire to achieve equal rights by writing, “The life of the Iranian woman at the turn of the twentieth century was a maze of regulations and limitations meant to keep her cloistered existence beyond the reach of any but her immediate kin. As an infant, her birth brought disappointment to all, even the midwife who lost a gift coin that the birth of a boy would bring her…At the age of nine she was considered mature.” (Afkhami : An Introduction 2). In the midst 1 In May 1844, two men, Mullah Husayn and Sayyid 'Ali Muhammad met in the outskirts of the southern Iranian city of Shiraz. The former was a religious leader of high standing and the latter was a 24-year old merchant with notions of himself as the bab (meaning gate) who would usher in a new cycle of prophecy, and maybe even the end of the world. Mullah Husayn was so impressed by him that he became his first disciple. The Bab won thousands of followers and in 1848 they proclaimed their total break with Islam. By July 1850, when the Bab was executed by government firing squad, a new religion had been born.
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