An unrecorded struggle

Avaye Zan: could you describe the present women’s movement in Iran and the problems it faces.

Sima: 1 From the very first days of the coming to power, the religious regime in Iran faced a spontaneous movement of women, one that was not organised. There was widespread opposition to the taking away of women’s rights in every field and the mediaeval oppression being imposed on women. From the first days right up to today opposition to the imposition of the compulsory hejab (veiling) and clothing on women has been at the core of this movement. The regime used hejab and an anti-woman morality as its main lever for imposing ideological control on women. Therefore the fight against the law which made hejab compulsory became the cornerstone of the spontaneous women’s movement.

From those early days a broad nation-wide front formed around opposition to the anti-woman morality of the ideology in power. And for eighteen years the most conspicuous, persistent, and visible form of resistance by Iranian women to religious-moral coercion has been their resistance to the repression of women for how they dress, make up, and relate to the opposite sex.

Street arrests, lashings, fines, efforts to crush their dignity, strategies to provoke conflict within the family - all proved futile. Indeed it united fathers and husbands behind their daughters and wives. The resistance by the women has transformed such solidarity with their struggle into the open and into conflict with the regime.

Iran’s male-dominated society, whose male domination is the only point of contact with the present regime, is in my view the main reason the current regime came to power. Now that women have proved the rightness of their cause through their struggle, this same society is slowly moving towards becoming more “feminine”. To the extent such advances are successful to that extent the regime loses power and legitimacy.

Home and society

Women have also struggled in other fields. Within the family these include opposition to the one-sided right of men to divorce, the man’s right to children and his the total ownership on joint property after divorce. In education the fight against the exclusion of women from some university courses (agricultural engineering, mining, mechanics etc.). Against the anti-woman and inhuman Islamic laws on ghesas 2 the stoning to death etc.; against the highly sexist laws on the right to judge, to be a witness in court, to be a solicitor, lob-sided inheritance etc.; against the law permitting polygamy, forced marriage, the legal age of marriage (9 for girls), forced monogamy on women; against illegalisation of abortion.

The rising incidence of abortions in Iran is remarkable, and speaks of a massive recourse to illegal abortion as a form of “contraception”. Despite the terrible dangers, difficulties and prohibitive costs, the rising numbers of abortions is another hidden side of the struggle of women in the years the Islamic regime has been in power.

Alongside these struggles comes the battle for equality in various aspects of social activity and against the hierarchy of male dominance in every field. This is a struggle against the male-dominated culture in every arena, from home to society - a struggle to prove oneself in science, art, literature, sports, culture etc.

The point to emphasise is that Iranian women have pursued every aspects of their assorted struggles without having a particular organisation, and merely by using individual or group wisdom (such as advice from female friends, relatives, neighbours, colleagues). Because of the religious repression of freedoms in Iran, there are no journals or organisations that can move on and keep up with every advance of this movement. Therefore the totality of the struggles of Iranian women have not found their just echo anywhere. This is even true of the mere news of every corner of these struggles. I don’t think Iranian history has witnessed such a broad and persistent struggle, yet unaided and relatively unknown to the rest of the world.

Unrepresentative magazines

Neither the array of Islamic women’s magazines 3 in Iran, nor the official and unofficial Islamic women’s institutions are capable of even recording the women’s struggle in all its aspects. The lack of press freedom and freedom of association is one reason. Another, and equally importantly, is the constraints imposed by Islamic ideology (both official state Islam and the internal opposition within the Islamic system).

In other words these publications and institutions walk lamely way behind the broader women’s movement. They can never represent this highly varied and broad struggle.

The attempts by some intellectuals inside and outside th country to present some of these Islamic tendencies - such as the journal Zanan - as representing Iranian women, and their fighting strategy, and calling it Islamist feminism (which even Zanan rejected) gives an inaccurate portrait of the reality of the struggles of Iranian women.

It is a futile effort to suggest that Islamic reformism in Iran can act as the philosophical-ideological representative of the women’s movement in the country. The secular nature of the movement is made clear through its demands for legislations that are clearly non-Islamic. Those who attempt to stick a different label to the cultural and philosophical characteristics of this movement are not doing it a favour. Indeed they are pointing it in a retrospective direction.

I would add that the publishing of some feminist articles from a non-Islamic perspective in Zanan has been achieved through the efforts of a few secular women who co-operate with that journal. If they could find an independent secular outlet for their produce they would undoubtedly have taken a different route.

This is not to deny that Zanan has been influenced by the women’s movement and feminists ideas in Iran. This can be seen in some of the shifts in the journal’s position and are certainly positive steps that have taken Zanan forwards. Undoubtedly the radicalisation of the political position taken by another monthly, Kian, which greatly inspires the direction taken by Zanan, has also been effective in the changes I talked about.

Problems

The movement in Iran has the same broad set of aims as the women’s movement everywhere. It ranges from demands made in previous phases of its struggles (some partially accomplished) to new demands in keeping with the present stage of the struggle. As elsewhere the women’s movement in Iran is made up of women from different classes and with a varied cultural mix. It therefore projects from the simplest to the most complex demands.

Yet despite the broad nature of this movement there is no equivalent powerful and broad cultural-philosophical women’s movement. This, in my view, is a major drawback to the struggle. Women activist are putting much effort to fill this gap. Among intellectual and educated Iranian women today feminist studies and debates are becoming popular at various levels. Yet this is not enough when put alongside the massive spontaneous protest movement. It is hoped that in parallel with the struggles for democracy in Iran, and the pressures from below, which have helped open the atmosphere, feminist consciousness can also be extended in the spontaneous women’s movement.

Women in social life

Literally millions of women had such a novel and amazing social experience in the movement against the monarchy, dictatorship and imperialism that no force could thereafter push them back into the home under the shadow Islamic ideology. This applies even to that section of Iranian women with deep religious beliefs. It became impossible thereafter to limit women to the “sacred” role of mother and wife. No doubt economic factors have also played a part.

The upshot is that purges, expulsions and redundancies widely imposed on working women could not make them leave the social arena. Women continued to press from below. They thought up numerous social excuses to maintain a presence in society in a variety of forms - that is in addition to their job (where they had one).

Endless classes and courses of vocational, technical, scientific, language, sports, and cultural nature, both state and private have been set up for women. The huge attendance of working women, students and housewives in these courses is living proof. Here women experience being together and sharing experiences. They learn how to tackle their particular problems and they learn socialisation and solidarity with women.

Interestingly the sexual apartheid practised in the country forces women to have their own, single sex, gatherings. In the absence of political freedoms, conditions are ripe for the creation of associations and trade-institutions for women. Some service and cultural projects have already been set up by the women themselves and others are in the process of taking shape. Women are gathering in numerous small circles because of the need to be together and to learn from each other. These are spreading.

Every year the International Women’s Day 4 is celebrated in these circles. Cultural and sports gathering of women also organise educational, recreational and sports events and outings of women. These sometimes last for some days and are organised by the women themselves. They are attempt to strengthen the spirit of solidarity and co-operation between women and encourage independence of action by them.

Islamist feminism

What are your views on Islamic feminism especially in the context of Iranian society?

During its internal developments feminism has been influenced by many philosophies, and in turn has affected them. Such has been its relationship with liberalism, Marxism, socialism, and to a certain extent post-modernism. The major religions such as Christianity and Islam could not fail to be influenced by the achievements of feminism in the fields of ideology and social advancement for women. These religions have made changes in sacred laws dealing with women’s rights, to a greater or lesser extent depending on their adaptability.

The rigidity of Islamic laws and commandments has limited the manoeuvrability of Islam compared to Christianity. These religions grew at a time when male domination and paternalism marked human civilisation. Not surprisingly, therefore, their laws and commandments are anti-female and any attempt to change them from within is slow and will meet the resistance of the huge male-dominance. This is particularly true of Islam. Therefore religious reformists, and in our case Islamic reformists have little to say along the lines of the world movement of women - the feminist movement. Their efforts to explain away or adapt the anti-woman laws of Islam with some of the demands of women are at best primitive and incomplete, and way behind that movement.

Does the question of separation of religion and state figure among women tending towards religious feminism? Is it acceptable within this group?

Once they consider the question of the separation of religion and state (and therefore separation of religion and politics), then they are relegating religion to the realm of the personal and private. Islam then ceases to be an ideology which wants to determine politics.

It is only then that one can explain the problems and rights of women in political, legal, judicial, and cultural secular terms. And this is the only way it should be. Were this to happen. then women who have even deep personal beliefs in Islam can join the independent women’s movement. However, if they wish to recognise the women’s question from an Islamic angle then, as I said above, they will lag way behind the independent women’s movement. At best they will try and excuse Islamic laws. Their reforms would bring very limited benefits to women.

Secular-Islamist Co-operation

What in your view are the obligations of the independent women’s movement towards the Islamic women and their journals? Should they co-operate and are there limits?

The independent women’s movement is not concerned with peoples religious beliefs. Therefore religious women (in the sense of holding a personal religious belief) would be included regardless of their religion in the same vein as their race, ethnicity, nationality, class etc. would not be of any import.

However when it comes to women holding an Islamist ideology, it has to be said that the very name of the independent women’s movement ensures its independence from all the existing political parties, groups and organisations. Moreover its policies and methods are determined and executed by women.

On the other hand, the existing Islamic women’s institutions and publications are linked to one or other faction of the Islamic spectrum in power. Some currently hold the reigns while others are in opposition to it. But what is clear is that they are all active in a single Islamic system which has official power. Their problems are mostly rivalry over power and within the framework of the Islamic ideological system (despite their diversity of organisation and belief).

For this reason the Islamic women’s currents, are politically and ideologically linked in different degrees to the “male” current supporting them. They therefore have (again to various degrees) less independence of belief or action. At best these Islamic women’s currents support some pro-women reforms within the framework of Islam. The clear line and demarcation that separates the independent women’s movement from these Islamic currents is the struggle to separate religion and state and to pass non-religious laws.

I understand the co-operation of these two very different currents in this fundamentally important way: it is up to the independent women’s movement to formulate the slogans and aims of the women’s struggle in Iran, to place these in its programme, and act upon them. Then the extent of the co-operation of the Islamic women’s movement with this independent movement would determine the reciprocal relationship of the independent women’s movement with the Islamists.

Otherwise, while they maintain their present position of power and monopoly, and while not facing an independent movement, they will rely on the work of individual non-Islamic women to correct their faulty positions without giving these secular women space for independence of action or views.

In such a situation co-operation is meaningless. It amounts to nothing other than secular women trailing and surrendering to the Islamists. My belief is that were an independent women’s movement to have its own institutions and ideological currents, many of these secular women would be absorbed there.

What in your view is the relation between equality and social justice and the liberation of women?

There has been much debate on this point globally. A common theme has been the reciprocal relationship between the equality and social justice and the liberation of women. My views run along similar lines. My emphasis is that the exploitation of women and other forms of exploitation exists in a general social structure based on exploitation of humans and nature. The struggle against any specific exploitation will damage the general structure. In the ideal situation a united and uni-directed struggle against various forms of exploitation will deliver critical blows on the body of that general structure. Yet in this broad and general structure, the complete solution of one problem depends on the solution of the others.

Women and elections

How do you view the efforts of various Islamic tendencies to push for the presence of women in the recent parliamentary elections in Iran and the election of Faezeh Rafsanjani? 5

I will try to answer this by recourse to a general and universal formula which is true throughout the male dominated world of today: the enormous and transforming effect of the women’s struggles in every national political arena and on almost every society, meant that the male dominated global society could no longer ignore the growing force of women. Male policy makers were forced to consider the factor of the power of women in the balance of power - obviously wherever possible for their own benefits.

The Islamic Republic too faces the huge and growing force of women and is well aware of their dissatisfaction with the Islamic system ruling the country. Not surprisingly it has, and continues to use, this force in its favour. The various factions in power, each to the extent they understand this undeniable reality, tried to attract the female vote by including some women in their list of candidates.

The cleverer Rafsanjani faction capitalised by bringing out Faezeh Rafsanjani as its most prominent candidate and was rewarded by a greater share of the vote, particularly of women.

Of course, a large part of Iran’s women, like their male counterparts, were disillusioned with the elections and either did not participate or boycotted it. However, that section who voted for Faezeh Rafsanjani was unaware that political players had used her without giving her much leeway. Immediately after gaining the highest number of votes in Teheran’s ballot on the first round, she was declared second and was forced to retract her advocacy of women cyclists. 6

The Islamic regime from the first was confronted by a progressive society which forced it to back track in some areas. One of the forces which imposed this back tracking was that of women in society.

Today, despite the many blows it has had to endure, the presence of women in art, theatre, cinema, music, painting, and sport is startling. Women have used all forms of private and even state sponsored classes and educational courses. By exposing the public in a variety of ways to their art they have kept, and even extended, these realms for themselves. The creation of possibilities below, and maintaining pressure on those above has been their tactic in all fields, including sports.

No power has been able to quell the movement which from that first of March of 1979 and for the next 18 years been moving ahead. No force will be able to defeat it in the future. Obviously the movement needs all the help women intellectuals inside and outside the country can give it. In particular the movement needs to move towards greater organisation and greater awareness. These will give it greater potential to fight for more clearer aims.

2 The law of Ghesas (an eye for an eye) is the basis of criminal law in the Islamic Republic.

3 Such as Zan-e Ruz and Zanan.

4 March 8

5 President Rafsanjani’s daughter who was one of only two candidates to get through on the first round in Teheran.

6 Traditionally the candidate obtaining the top vote in the capital has enormous influence and is usually elected as Speaker of Parliament. Faezeh has vociferously defended the right of women to cycle in public but retracted when she was attacked by a barrage of mullahs.