Report from 14^th Annual Conference of the Iranian Women's Studies Foundation (27 - 29 June 2003)

The Iranian Women's Studies Foundation (IWSF) held its Fourteenth International Conference in London on 27, 28 and 29th June 2003. The theme of this year's conference was "Globalisation and its Impact on Women".

The conference organisers had tried to combine a programme encompassing various aspects of globalisation, such as women and war, women and labour, women and the international sex trade, globalisation and the role of mass media and so on.

The conference was very successful and there were more than 300 participants who attended the 3 day event. The programme on the first day of the Conference was in English, talks given on the 2nd and 3rd day were in Farsi. Following the inaugural statements of the conference, Helen Crowley from the journal Feminist Review, who is the editor of a special issue of this journal on Globalisation, gave a talk on the various aspects of globalisation.

This talk was followed by a panel discussion entitled 'women and war’, with three speakers from Afghanistan, Palestine and a speaker on behalf of Kurdish women. Sahar Saba from RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) talked about 3 decades of women's struggles in Afghanistan reminding everyone of the origins of her organisation, the limitations of women's emancipation under the Russian occupation, the battles of Afghan women against successive Islamic states, from the Mojahedin to the Taleban and currently under Karzai. She gave a graphic description of life under the new regime and the daily problems and struggles of Afghan women, Sana Dabbagh, a Palestinian activist got a standing ovation following her presentation of the plight of the Palestinians. She showed maps of the shrinking areas 'offered' in various peace proposals to the Palestinians to illustrate the dilemma of this nation after 50 years of occupation. The plight of Kurdish women in the region was discussed in a talk given by a representative of the Kurdish Human Rights Project.

In the afternoon Professor Sylvia Walby (England) who has written extensively on the effects of globalisation on women, made a valuable contribution. Her paper was concerned with the relations between gender and globalisation. She argued that there were variations in the implications of globalisation for women in different countries and stressed the importance of new forms of politics of globalisation on gender inequality. She talked about gender regimes and various domains within it such as economic, polity and civil society and pointed out that the conceptualisation of the polity needed to be broadened beyond the state if contemporary gender and ethnic projects were to be understood.

In the early part of the evening, Mimi Khalvati recited her poems in English. After the poetry reading, the programme had been scheduled to hold the ‘Women of the Year’ ceremony to honour Mehrangiz Kar, an Iranian lawyer and writer on women’s issues and their legal rights in Iran. She did not attend the conference so her acceptance speech was read. In the evaluation of the conference, this part of the programme attracted a lot of criticism mainly on two accounts, one was the underlying principle behind honouring a woman in this fashion and the other was the choice of Mehrangiz Kar herself and the criteria for the selection. Some argued that this slot should be used to create space to promote the collective initiatives and actions of women who do not otherwise have any opportunity or tribune to be heard. The view to abandon ‘woman of the year’ event was welcomed by parts of the audience and some organisers of the conference.

Saturday's meeting included the Opening Statement of IWSF by its president Golnaz Amin (USA) who gave an overall view of the state of global capital in our era and the challenges posed by it. This talk was followed by a contribution by Dr Shahrzad Mojab (Canada) who described herself as a Marxist Feminist. The title of her talk was 'War, Poverty and the Violence of Globalisation Against Women' and she concentrated on the devastating effects of global capitals on the lives and works of women in the developing countries. She claimed that globalisation was both old and new and technological changes had accelerated its development. She finished her talk by giving reference to a statement on 'women's equality' signed by many organisations of the Iranian Left. It should be added that Dr Mojab was instrumental in drawing up this document and her impartial, constructive contributions paved the way for this unique statement of intent.

Fahimeh Farsaie (Germany) was the next speaker. She looked at the economic definition of globalisation, the role of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and their impact on the economy of the 'developing' countries. She also referred to the role of women in the process of globalisation as 'cheap labour'. The conference also heard from Niloufar Pourzand (Canada) in a talk entitled "Afghan Women and the International Community: Issues of Dialogue, Representation and Solidarity". She shared some of her experiences regarding Afghan women and how they were seen by others in the region as well as internationally. She also talked about the impact of war and displacement on Afghan women as well as women in the region.

Nayereh Tavakoli (Payame Noor University in Tehran/Iran) delivered a paper titled "Globalisation and Iranian Women". Nayereh Tavakoli pointed out that inside Iran there was lack of information and discussion about social and economic issues regarding globalisation and reminded us that the official press and media drew a rosy picture of this phenomenon. Sepideh Khosrowjah's (USA) talk "Globalisation and the Control of People's Mind in the World Media and Hollywood" drew a lot of attention as she described in detail the role of mass media in portraying women. She also argued that globalisation was not just the economic domination of capital. Other manifestations of globalisation could be seen in the co-operation and collaboration of the media owned by multi-national companies.

The afternoon session continued with poetry reading from three generations of Iranian women poets, Jaleh Esfahani, Shadab Vajdi and Ziba Karbasi, all from England.

Saturday's programme ended with the showing of a documentary film: "Women Directors and Filmmakers in Iran" by Hamid Khairoldin and a rare showing of the Film: "Women's Prison" in the presence of the film's director and producer Manijeh Hekmat.

Sunday's talks started with an impressive panel discussion presented by the second generation contributors, who surprised many conference attendees with their lively and clever portrayal of life as young women both inside and outside Iran. There were five contributors in this section: Azadeh Babaii Fard (Iran), Leyla Pope (England), Sepideh Golzari (Scotland), Roxana Massoumi (England) and Shabnam Holliday (England) who primarily tackled the issue of identity for second generation women and depicted refreshing and bold accounts of their experiences.

Maryam Shahmanesh (England) was the next speaker on Sunday and her talk entitled "Globalisation, Commercial Sex, Work and the HIV Epidemic: Lessons for Iran", drew on her own research in this area and gave a detailed, medical and social perspective of the impact of Globalisation on spread of commercial sex. She looked at the relationship between the spread of HIV in the global world and women's inequality and argued that the current phase of economic and political globalisation had contributed to the conditions necessary for the HIV pandemic.

In the last session of the conference in a panel entitled 'women and labour', Houri Saba (Canada) spoke about "Globalisation, Employment and Domestication of Iranian Women", making references to the plight of women working in factories, small workshops or 'from home' in Iran. She maintained that the contribution of working class women in the process of globalisation demanded an assessment at a global level. Yassmine Mather's (Scotland) talk "Women, Labour and Globalisation" concentrated on the economic effects of global capital in an era of uncertainty. It dealt with casualisation, problems of obtaining equal pay for equal work, issues regarding women and work both in advanced capitalist countries and in Iran. She talked about the failure of the most advanced capitalist societies in resolving the gender issues and pointed out that the illusions about 'democracy' and 'women's rights' under bourgeois democracy were widespread in Iran.

The last part of the conference was its evaluation by the delegates which was very informative and created a space for the participants to comment on the programmes. The participants also had the opportunity to suggest some themes for next year's conference which will be held in Berlin.

This conference also offered a range of artistic programmes and performances with 30 women artists participating. There were musical performances by various artists including Vida Kashizadeh, Tara Jaff, Somayeh Bighizadeh (England) and Maryam Akhoundi and the Banou Group (Germany). This conference saw the largest visual art exhibitions by Iranian women – both live and virtual. Documentary films by Iranian filmmakers included “Mother Country”' by Tina Gharavi (UK), an award winning writer and director based in England who had been commissioned by Channel Four to make her docu-fiction film. The film is about her journey back to Iran twenty years after the 1979 Revolution in Iran. Pershang Vaziri's film “Women Like Us” was a 60-minute documentary about the lives of five Iranian women in Iran from different walks of life. Her film is an attempt to challenge the misconceptions about Middle Eastern or Muslim Women. The third documentary “Iranian Journey”' was a film about the life of a woman bus driver in Iran directed by Maysoon Pachachi. Sogand Bahram presented two films. “Work in Progress”, with the assistance of Nargess Shahmanesh, gave an insightful view of the life and achievements of second-generation Iranian women in the UK. In “Hafez for Beginners”, a brief visual treat, she examines the image the West has of the “other world” where the East is simply an image.

This conference was very successful in bringing together Iranian women both in exile and inside Iran and from different generations. It was instrumental in opening many discussions on various aspects of globalisation and marked a return to the more radical traditions of Iranian feminism. IWSF will publish the text of all the talks in its annual journal in the autumn.

The Iranian Women's Studies Foundation (IWSF) is a non-profit organization. It has no affiliation to any political or religious group or organization, and aims to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas on issues related to Iranian women, to disseminate information on Iranian women's achievements, and to establish a network of communication among communities of Iranian women the world over. The main activity of the IWSF consists of annual international conferences wherein a theme related to Iranian women is approached through scholarly presentations, art exhibitions, and artistic or dramatic performances. The history of Iran has consisted, for the most part, of male-dominated narratives and accounts of men's exploits and achievements. IWSF attempts to offer a different perspective on Iran's history by protecting, preserving and propagating the works of Iranian women. Since 1990, the IWSF has conducted annual conferences in various cities around the world. At these gatherings, academics and professionals interested in issues related to Iranian women congregate to share the result of their research, to celebrate the artistic accomplishments of Iranian women, and to exchange ideas and plans for the future. The IWSF publishes the proceedings of its annual conferences in the Journal of the IWSF in which works by and about Iranian women are collected annually.

For more information see www.iwsf.org

Yassamine Mather and Azar Sheibani