Iran

Dossier 14-15: Leur culture, notre culture

La politique cachée du relativisme culturel
Note de l'éditrice

Les femmes émigrées en Europe et en Amérique du Nord ont commencé à dénoncer depuis longtemps la mollesse dangereuse dont font preuve les pays hôtes en tolérant et en encourageant des lois, des coutumes et des pratiques oppressives importées de nos pays et de nos cultures - au nom de la tolérance, du respect de l'autre, du droit à la différence, de la parité de cultures ou de religions différentes, etc...

Iran: Bad Jens - feminist online magazine

Bad Jens aims to improve links between activists/academics inside and outside the country.

The Women’s Movement in Iran: Women at the Crossroads of Secularisation and Islamization

The paper thus outlines the social and political conditions that have led not only to the development of secular feminist perspectives in Iran, but to the emergence of woman-centred Islamists and their strategies which aim, thus far with considerable success, to fundamentally challenge conventional gender visions often presented as "Islamic." This analysis of the gender debates in Iran, and by extension elsewhere in the Muslim world, reiterates that Islam, particularly as a political ideology, is far from static and unchanging; it is a dynamic and evolving ideological force that

Dossier 23-24: Women in Iran Since 1979

Although all countries are unique, Iran may have claim to more surprising political changes in the past century than any other country existing continuously during that period. Among these changes have been notable alterations in women’s roles and status. The birth of urban mass politics during the constitutional revolution of 1906-11 saw women’s first political activism, which continued after World War 1, though that independence was eventually much diminished under the new Pahlavi dynasty of Reza Shah (1921-41) (Afary, 1996; Bayat, 1978; Paidar, 1995; Sanasarian, 1982).

Dossier 23-24: Chronology of Events Regarding Women in Iran since the Revolution of 1979

February 11, 1979
Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers take power after a revolution.

February 26, 1979
Khomeini announces that the Family Protection Law (1967) is abrogated.

March 3, 1979
Khomeini announces that women cannot be judges.

March 6, 1979
Khomeini announces that women are to wear hejab in the workplace.

Dossier 23-24: (Un)Veiling Feminism

This essay draws on several talks and conversations: Brandeis University, 17 March 1998; Harvard University, 19 November 1998; and American Association of Religion, 23 November 1999. 1 would like to thank the organizers of each event for giving me the opportunity to present these ideas, and other panel participants and the audience for critical comments. Special thanks to Camron Amin, Janet Jakobsen, Irena Klepfisz, and Ann Pellegrini for many thoughtful conversations.

Dossier 21: Women and Politics in Post-Islamist Iran: the Gender Conscious Drive to Change

The implementation of the Shari’a and the institutionalization of gender inequality in the aftermath of the revolution led to the disillusionment of the gender-sensitive Islamist women and triggered their discontent. Through their involvement in politics they attempted to present a different reading of Islam and Islamic laws which would be more attentive to the condition of women.

Dossier 14-15: The Hidden Politics of Cultural Relativism

Editor’s note

Women migrants in Europe or North America have long started to denounce the dangerous softness with which oppressive laws, customs and practices against women, imported from our countries and cultures, are tolerated or encouraged in the host countries, - in the name of tolerance, of respect of the Other, of the right to difference, of putting at par different cultures or religions, etc...

Like our own governments, governments of the countries of immigration are prepared to sell out the well being, the human rights and the civil right

Dossier 17: Stretching The Limits: A Feminist Reading of the Shari’a in Post-Khomeini Iran

Women’s issues are now an integral part of modern Islamic discourses, as evidenced in the plethora of ‘Women in Islam’ titles in religious publishing projects all over the Muslim world.[1] In practice, this has entailed re-readings of the old texts in search of solutions - or more precisely, Islamic alternatives - for a very modern problem, which has to do with the changed status of women and the need to accommodate their aspirations for equality and to define and control their increasing participation in t

Dossier 14-15: Women in Iranian Civil Law 1905-1995

Only the blind overlook the worsening condition of women under the Islamic regime.