Introduction the Anthropological Studies Dealing with the Status Of
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THE STATUS OF WOMEN AMONG THE QASHQAI OF SOUTH IRAN SEKANDAR AMANOLAHI Shiraz University Introduction The anthropological studies dealing with the status of women have grown rapidly in recent years. In her review of the materials dealing with the subject, including the feminist movement in the U.S., Naomi Quinn states: “Apart from their personal interest in women’s status, the movement itself has cast them in the key intellectual role defining women’s place in a revised theory of the evolution of human society. Beginning in the early 1970’s and rising to a current crescendo of books and articles, anthropologists representing all theoretical persua- sions, most of them American and most of them women, have pro- duced an entire new literature on the status of women cross-cultur- ally”.1 Despite these developments, the position of women among the pas- toralists of Iran and the Middle East in general is still a subject of con- troversy and remains to be more fully investigated. The anthropologi- cal studies dealing with the nomads of the Middle East are not con- cerned with the status of women in these societies or present contra- dictory views either. Generally speaking, those ethnographers writing on women’s status seldom take into consideration the women’s view of themselves. As Cynthia Nelson has stated: “If we had better knowl- edge of the “Lived-in-World” of nomadic women, we might come up with different image of the society and the definition of power”.2 It seems that in the few cases where the women have expressed themselves, their views have not been taken seriously because of fre- quent assumption that such views derive from their cultural ideals and, therefore, do not represent their actual or real status. The article by 1Naomi Quin, “Anthropological Studies on Women’s Status”, Bernard Siegle, et al. (eds), An- nual Review of Anthropology, California, 1977. 2Cynthia Nelson, “Public and Private Politics: Women in the Middle Eastern World”, Ameri- can Anthropologist, vol. I, No.3, 1974: 551-561. Brill, Leiden, 2004 Iran and the Caucasus, 8.1 132 SEKANDAR AMANOLAHI Reza Fazel is a case in point: “... Decisions which affect the whole camp are reached in a loosely organised assembly consisting of most of the adult males present. To the observer this constitutes the whole de- cision-making body, and the men themselves are quick to confirm it. Interestingly enough, the female informants give further credence to the cultural ideal that men enjoy power and authority in such matters. Yet, if one is not completely dazzled by the formal features of the so called “male dominated” society, one will soon realize that in practice the reality is somewhat different, sometime even radically so”.3 As is clear from the above statement, the pastoral nomads have rightly expressed their own view, but the ethnographer thinks differ- ently. Furthermore, the ethnographic sources contain little or no infor- mation about the legal status of women among the nomads of the Middle East. Consequently, with few exceptions4 we have almost no information on the legal rights of women in these societies, while the status of women could be better understood if we take into considera- tion their legal rights, and the women’s view of their own social status. Following this perspective, the present paper examines the legal rights of women, their participation in decision-making, and finally their im- age of their own social standing. It is based mainly on field materials of the author and his own observations. The Qashqai The Qashqai are a Turkic speaking people who live in Fars prov- ince in south Iran. They number over 30,000 families. Traditionally they were organised into a tribal confederacy known as il-i-Qashqai (the Qashqai tribe), which was under the control of an Ilkhan (paramount chief). The confederacy consisted of five major tribes each of them having a Kal"ntar (tribal chief). The entire tribe depended on animal husbandry and pursued a nomadic way of life. In recent years, the Qashqai like other tribal groups of Iran have begun to change. Their political organisation was disrupted as a result of direct governmental intervention. Later on, other governmental 3Reza Fazel, “Social and Political Status of Women among Pastoral Nomads: The Boyr Ah- mad of South-West Iran”, Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 5, No.2, 1977: 77-89. 4E. g. Safia Mohsan, “Aspects of the Legal Status of Women among Awl"d Ali”, Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East, ed. Louise E. Sweet, New York: The Natural History Press, vol, 1: 220- 233; from the recent publications see A. Zarian, Kin÷ iranakan ¿oªovurdneri avandakan kenc‘aªum, Ere- van, 2003..