Iran: Women in the Frontline
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Womenmakenews June 12 2009, the day that Iranians voted for a new president, was also the fourth anniversary of the demonstration that the women’s movement organized at the University of Tehran in 2005.
It was the first demonstration held by women since the 1979 revolution. Women activists gathered for a peaceful demonstration to protest the Constitution,-considering it the root and origin of many discriminatory rules and regulations prevailing in Iran--and to ask for reforms. That day, the disciplinary forces used public transport buses to surround the group and prevent others from joining them. When the protest was peacefully coming to a close, the forces started beating the women and later most of the participants were called over for interrogations.
During Ahmadinejad’s first term, the Iranian women's movement was under severe pressure and suppression. In the month before the 2009 elections, the movement formed a coalition with activists of varying viewpoints, from secular activists to religious ones. Coming together, they agreed on two main demands of the presidential candidates: first, having Iran join CEDAW (Convention of Elimination and Discrimination against Women); and second, revising the Constitution. They published pamphlets and carried placards showing women’s demands. They started lobbying the candidates and writing articles on their websites and made their demands heard with their limited tools. The women activists gathered support outside Iran as well, and played an active role as the most dynamic civil movement in Iran.
During the weeks leading to the election, the streets and alleys of Iran’s main cities were filled with young women, who chanted for reform, shoulder-to-shoulder with their male counterparts. These young women were born and raised during the Islamic Republic’s rule and supported reformist candidates to bring about change. Some belonged to the generation that entered the universities in 1990s and 2000s and that had played a significant role in civil rights movement in Iran in the last two decades. The presidency of Mohammad Khatami, specifically and most significantly, had brought a rather free political and social atmosphere to society. This generation brought a new and fresh blood to reform-seeking movements, especially the women’s movement.
Iranian young women supported reformists, not only to show their hatred of Ahmadinejad's misogynist policies and his government's social restrictions on women's appearance in the public sphere, but also to seek social, economical, political and legal reforms. Iranian women have been denied equal rights since the beginning of the Islamic Republic. Although women represent more than 60 percent of university students, only 12 percent are employed. Changes to Family Law in the first years of the establishment of the Islamic government deprived women of many of their rights in the family. The new regulations did not allow women power of their personal appearance but forced to wear hijab. With Ahmadinejad’s policies, they were even denied some university majors. Ahmadinejad also tried to change Family Law to give men more freedom to commit polygamy—something the women’s activists successfully defeated.
Despite all of these social and public constraints, women continue to participate passionately in civil movements. The women of this generation who had spent almost all of their lives post-revolution, have become the main members of the women’s movement in Iran--a movement that has fought since the nineteenth century for women’s freedom and gender equality. These young women became chairpersons and spoke-persons in the student’s movement. These women played major roles and wrote in the reformist newspapers that were born in 1997 under Khatami’s presidency. They remained the voice of women in these newspapers.
Now, in June 2009, these same women poured into the street to shout their demands once more and to show that Iranian women are not silent--and have not been during the last 100 years. Women became the frontline of the peaceful, inborn and independent Green Movement. They were insulted, attacked and killed by the police and Basij militia but they resisted and returned to the streets almost every day. They were women from varying social strata, low class, upper class, religious, non-religious, young and old. They protected their male counterparts from police and militia attacks and bravely confronted them when necessary. Women became the main feature of the Iranian protests. Neda Agha Soltan, the girl who was shot in Tehran’s streets, became the symbol of the killed Iranians who came out to shout for their freedom. They chanted “my martyr sister, I will get your vote back”. They carried placards showing that woman and man are equals. Many Iranian women activists and journalists were detained by the government, and in most cases, their families have yet to hear any news of them.
Iranian women, once more, proved that they are among the main elements of any kind of change that is going to happen in Iran. They proved that Iran cannot reach democracy and freedom unless it welcomes their demands and their active presence in society. Iranian women have shown how mature their movement is, and how they are aware of what they want. They showed that they never give up their demands. Iranian women stay independent, powerful and ambitious for their rights. We should hope their presence in the demonstrations will help realize their demands for the political, legal, social and economic changes women require. We should not let what women ask for to be forgotten in the movement, since women are its main axis.
6 July 2009
By Leila Mouri (A doctoral student at Columbia University, NYC)
Source: Womenmakenews
