Women in Iran

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17th century painting of Safavi Iranian royal court depicting woman pouring wine at Chehel Sotoon Palace, Esfahan.
17th century painting of Safavi Iranian royal court depicting woman pouring wine at Chehel Sotoon Palace, Esfahan.

Iranian women (or Persian women) in this article refers to women of, or from, traditional Persian or modern Iranian culture.[1].

Contents

[edit] Depictions and appearance

Women as depicted in 18th century Iranian painting.
Women as depicted in 18th century Iranian painting.

Throughout the history including Persia, both men and women used make-up, wore jewellery and coloured their body parts. Moreover, their garments were both elaborate and colorful. Rather than being marked by gender, clothing styles were distinguished by class and status [2]. Women in modern Iran (post 1935 "Persia") are of various mixes and appearances, both in fashion [3] and social norm.[4] Traditionally however, the "Persian woman" had a pre-defined appearance set by social norms that were the standard for all women in society.[5] For example, the observations of a late Qajar era orientalist read:

"The Persian ladies' hair is very luxuriant and never cut. It is nearly always dyed red with Henna, or with indigo to a blue-black tinge. It is naturally a glossy black. Fair hair is not esteemed. Blue eyes are not uncommon, but brown ones are the rule. A full moon face is much admired, and a dark complexion (termed Namak) is the native idea of the highest beauty. The eyebrows are widened and painted until they appear to meet, and color is used freely in painting the faces."[6]

[edit] History

[edit] Pre-Islamic Iran

Archeological excavations at Shahr-e Sookhteh "Burnt City," a prehistoric settlement in the Sistan-Baluchistan province of southeastern Iran, has revealed that the women of the 4th-3rd millennium BCE community maintained a high level of socio-economic status. Of the seals discovered in graves there, 90% were in the possession of women,[7] who in turn made up over 60% of the population.[8] The distribution of the seals, which as instruments of trade and government represented economic and administrative control, reveals that these women were the more powerful group in their prehistoric society.[7]

Edwin Long's Queen Esther.
Edwin Long's Queen Esther.

"The position of woman in ancient Iran was apparently in nowise inferior to her standing in the Vedic times of early India. As among other oriental nations, however, submission to her lord and master is taken for granted, and the woman who is 'obedient to her husband' comes in for a special meed of praise in the Avesta and elsewhere; but it is perfectly evident, as a rule, there was not that subjection which results in loss of personality and individuality."[9]

The early Achaemenid-era Persepolis fortification and treasury tablets refers to women in three different terms: mutu, irti and duksis.[10] The first refers to ordinary (non-royal) women; the second to unmarried members of the royal family; and the last duksis to married women of royalty. Such differentiated terminology shows the sigificance of marital status and of a woman's relationship to the king. The tablets also reveal that women of the royal household traveled extensively and often personally administered their own estates.[10] The queen and her ladies-in-waiting are known to have played polo against the emperor and his courtiers.[11] The only limits on the extent of the authority exercised by the king's mother were set by the monarch himself.[12][Quotation needed from source]

In the tablets, "non-royals and the ordinary workers are mentioned by their rank in the specific work group or workshops they were employed. The rations they received are based on skill and the level of responsibility they assumed in the workplace. The professions are divided by gender and listed according to the amount of ration. Records indicate that some professions were undertaken by both sexes while others were restricted to either male or female workers. There are male and female supervisors at the mixed workshops as evident by the higher rations they have received with little difference in the amount of rations between the two sexes. There are also occasions where women listed in the same category as men received less rations and vice versa. Female managers have different titles presumably reflecting their level of skill and rank. The highest-ranking female workers in the texts are called arashshara (great chief). They appear repeatedly in the texts, were employed at different locations and managed large groups of women children and sometimes men working in their units. They usually receive high rations of wine and grains exceeding all the other workers in the unit including the males."[10] In addition, pregnant women also received higher rations than others. Women with new-born children also received extra rations for a period of one month.

A few experts claim that it was Cyrus the Great who twelve centuries before Islam, established the custom of covering women to protect their chastity. According to their theory, the veil passed from the Achaemenids to the Hellenistic Seleucids. They, in turn, handed it to the Byzantines, from whom the Arab conquerors inherited it, transmitting it over the vast reaches of the Arab world.[13]

The Sassanid princess Purandokht, daughter of Khosrau II, ruled the Persian empire for almost two years before resigning. Also, during the Sassanian dynasty many of the Iranian soldiers captured by Romans were women who were fighting along with the men.[14]

Female Iranian PhDs in front of Tehran University's reactor, 1968. Text: "A quarter of Iran's Nuclear Energy scientists are women!"
Female Iranian PhDs in front of Tehran University's reactor, 1968. Text: "A quarter of Iran's Nuclear Energy scientists are women!"

Persian women are depicted in many masterpieces of Persian paintings and miniatures.[15] These are often used as sources to "trace through the sequence of women's fashion from earlier periods".[16] Drawing a Persian girl dressed in colors with Persian wine at hand has been a favorite style for portraying love[citation needed].

[edit] After the Islamic Conquest

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[edit] Under Pahlavi Dynasty

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The Pahlavi Shahs were the rulers of Iran between 1925 and 1979 and they produced many reforms concerning women's rights. An example of an early reform introduced by Reza Shah was the 'forced unveiling of women by a special decree on the 8th January 1936 (a day celebrated ever since as a national women's day).'[17] Women's involvement in society in general increased. Their participation in the educational and economic systems of Iran rose, as did their increased involvement in the Iranian workforce. Levels of literacy were also very much improved. Under the Pahlavi Shahs, the culture of education for women became more established. Examples of women's involvement: women acquired high official positions, such as ministers, artists, judges (the first woman judge was Shirin Ebadi, who recently won a Nobel prize), scientists, athletes, etc. Also in universities and schools, and since then education for women has become important.

Under Reza Shah's successor Muhammad Reza Shah many more significant reforms were introduced. For example 'in 1963, the Shah granted female suffrage and soon after women were elected to the Majlis (the parliament) and the upper house, and appointed as judges and ministers in the cabinet.' [18]. In 1967 Iranian family law was also reformed to improve the position of women in Iranian society. It was included in the civil code and was designed to protect wives, children and women divorcees. Within family law therefore women in Iran were for the first time granted and recognized as having an equal place alongside men.

The Family Protection Laws of 1967 and 1973 required a husband to go to court to divorce rather than simply proclaim the Triple talaq of `I divorce thee` three times, as stipulated by traditional sharia law. It allowed a wife to initiate divorce and required the first wife's permission for a husband to take a second wife. Child custody was left to new family protection courts rather than automatically granted to the father. The minimum age at which a female could marry was raised from 13 to 15 in 1967 and to 18 in 1975. [19]

Women lost most of these privileges after 1979 Islamic revolution when Islamic laws came to rule.

[edit] Under the Islamic Republic of Iran

A young Iranian woman is warned about her immodest dress. In April 2007, thousands of Iranian women were warned by the police in a crackdown on "bad hijab."
A young Iranian woman is warned about her immodest dress. In April 2007, thousands of Iranian women were warned by the police in a crackdown on "bad hijab."[20]
See also: Human rights in Iran#Gender issues and Persian women's movement

Iran has been an Islamic Republic since 1979. The impact of women on the Islamic revolution of Iran has been particularly mixed. One of the striking features of the revolution was the large scale participation of women from traditional backgrounds in demonstrations.[21] Some of this liberating effect has continued on for example, with large numbers of women in civil service and higher education,[22] and with fourteen women being elected to the Islamic Consultative Assembly in 1996. Currently nearly seventy percent of Iran's science and engineering students are women.[23] Also there are women in the Iranian police who deal with crimes committed by women.[24][25] Women, make up 27% of the Iranian labor force and the percentage of all Iranian women who are economically active has more than doubled from 6.1% in 1986 to 13.7% in 2000.[26]

Everything from "schoolrooms to ski slopes to public buses" is strictly segregated. In the first years after the revolution, females who didn't cover all parts of their body, except hands and face, were subject to punishment of up to seventy lashes or sixty days imprisonment.[27]

At first the revolution reverted family law to pre-Pahlavi status. Men could again abandon wives by simple declaration, while wives had no judicial recourse for divorce. The penal code reverted to Islamic traditions. Children of divorce went to the father and widowed mothers could lose their children to the nearest male relative. Some of the harsher aspects of these laws were later modified. But the clerics did not rescind the two basic rights for women they had historically opposed: education and the vote. [28]

Acts of protest against sex segregation of women includes an event of the 1997 so-called "soccer revolution" when an estimated 5000 women defied the ban on entering soccer stadiums and stormed the gates to join 120,000 men in celebration of Iran's national soccer team which had returned to the country from qualifying for the World Cup.[29]

[edit] Politics

Women in Iran were granted right to vote in 1963 [30]. They were first admitted to Iranian universities in 1937.[31] Since then, several women have held high-ranking posts in the government or parliament. Before the 1979 revolution several women were appointed ministers or ambassadors. Farrokhroo Parsa, was the first woman to be appointed Minister of Education in 1968 and Mahnaz Afkhami was appointed Minister for Women's Affairs in 1976.

Some, such as Tahereh Saffarzadeh, Masumeh Ebtekar, Fatemeh Haghighatjou, Elaheh Koulaei, Fatemeh Javadi, Marzieh Dabbaq and Zahra Rahnavard came after the revolution. Other Iranian women, including Goli Ameri and Farah Karimi hold positions in western countries.

[edit] Notable Iranian women

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Main article List of Iranian women.

Over recent years, women in Iran, whether Nobel laureates like Shirin Ebadi who became the first Muslim woman to win the prize, or young Ivy League professors such as Maryam Mirzakhani, have "achieved greatly in areas like education, political participation, and social mobilization, and have made great strides in terms of entering different fields of academia".[32] The gallery below is only a random sampling:

Akram Monfared (R) and Sāsān-dokht Sāsāni (L) Pilots of the Ghaleh-Morghi Airfield in Tehran. At the age of 20, Sasani became the youngest female pilot ever to fly in Iran. Monfared was the top of her class in flight numbers.

Dabir A'zam Hosna: Mayor of Babolsar. At the age of 35, she became Iran's second female mayor ever. She was soon forced to resign by an city council.

Dr Farrokhroo Pārsā: The first female cabinet minister of Iran. She served as Minister of Education in 1968.

Dr. Tal'at Basāri: The first woman to be appointed as Vice Chancellor of a university in Iran. (Jondishapur University)

Dr. Shahla Solh-ju: Co-Director of Pahlavi University's Abu Reihan Observatory.

Dr. Parvin Darabi: Iran's first female Ph.D in Electronics.

Malileh Farshid: Iran's youngest female architect. She designed the Ahvaz Sports Complex. Her wish was to have it ready for Ahvaz to host the 1984 Olympics.

Elaheh Azodi: International Miss Teen Princess 1968[33], is being crowned in Chicago.

Goli Ameri: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs

[edit] Iranian women's movement

Main article: Iranian women's movement

The Iranian women's movement involves the Iranian woman's experience of modernism[citation needed]. The concept of the "Modern Iranian woman" and its associated art, science, literature, poetry, and political structures has been evolving since the 19th century[citation needed]. Iranian women account for a remarkable fraction of intellectual circles in Iran and consequently have played roles in forming Iranian identity in modern time[citation needed].

During the last few decades, Iranian women have had significant presence in Iran's scientific movement, art movement, literary new wave and the new wave of Iranian cinema. According to the research ministry of Iran, about 6% of full professors, 8% of associate professors, and 14% of assistant professors were women in the 1998-99 academic year. However, women accounted for 56% of all students in the natural sciences, including one in five Ph.D. students. [4]

[edit] Persian women's day

The official women's day in Iran is on the birthday of Prophet's daughter Fatimah. In ancient times, the 29th of Bahman (18 February) was considered Persian women's day and many people still celebrate this day. History of the celebration dates back to Zoroastrian tradition. International Women's Day is also celebrated by Iranians specially by people involved in Persian women's movement.

[edit] Women in Persian culture

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Image of a woman holding a cup of wine, as depicted at Hasht-behesht palace, Isfahan, 17th century Iran.

Empress Soraya on the cover of an Italian magazine. The empress was frequently featured on numerous fashion magazines.

A Sassanid era mosaic excavated at Bishapur. This one is kept at The Louvre.

A Qajari woman, seen here smoking the traditional Qalyan.

Iranian woman, Qajar period.

Iranian woman, Qajar period.

Iranian woman, Qajar period.

Iranian woman, Qajar period.

In Persian literature one can find references to women as far back as Pre-Islamic times.[34] In some cases, women are mentioned as the potential force behind the failure or success of men[citation needed][original research?]. For example Dehkhoda states that "women are the taste of life" (زن نمک زندگیست), but then warns that some Men may find this taste too strong to bear (کام مرد از این جهت شور است). In verse, Sa'di rephrases[original research?] this as:

زن بد در سرای مرد نکو
A bad wife in a man's home,
هم درین عالم است دوزخ او
can bring hell down to this Earth.
زن خوب فرمانبر پارسا
The honorable, obedient and noble woman,
کند مرد درویش را پادشا
can turn the vagabond into a king.

But many texts elevate the status of women in their writings by using the word lady (بانو) instead of woman (زن) in their verses[original research?], whether narratives or anecdotes. For example in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh one reads:

ببوسید پیشش زمین پهلوان
Kissed the earth at her feet he did, the great hero.
بدو گفت کای مهتر بانوان
Called onto her he did: "oh highest of all the ladies".


Numerous examples from other poets can be seen as well:

عادت بود که هدیه نوروزی آورید
It is a tradition of the free to bring Norouz gifts
آزادگان به خدمت بانوی شهریار
for the lady of our royalty.
---Khaqani

نشنیدستی که خاک زر گردد
Have you not heard that dust turns into gold
از ساخته کدخدا و کدبانو
by the work of the Man and the Lady of the House?
---Naser Khosrow

And many creators of classical verse and prose were women themselves as well. One can mention Qatran Tabrizi, Rabia Balkhi, Táhirih, Simin Behbahani, Simin Daneshvar, Parvin E'tesami, Forough Farrokhzad, and Mahsati in this group.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ As defined and discussed by literature such as:
    • Persian Women & Their Ways Clara Colliver Rice. 1923. Seeley, Service & Co.
    • Voices from Iran: The Changing Lives of Iranian Women. Mahnaz Kousha. Syracuse University Press. 2002.
    • Veils and Words: The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers. Farzaneh Milani. Published 1992 by I.B.Tauris
  2. ^ For a reference on Persian dress through the ages see: [1]
  3. ^ For a reference on Iran ethnic costumes see[2]
  4. ^ For a reference on how Persian women were modernized see:
    • Women and the Political Process in Twentieth-Century Iran. Parvin Paidar. 1995 p.7
    • Veils and Words: The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers. Farzaneh Milani. 1992. p.234
  5. ^ *Veils and Words: The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers. Farzaneh Milani. 1992. p.193
  6. ^ The Encyclopaedia Britannica: a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information. Hugh Chisholm 1911. p.194
  7. ^ a b CHN Press. Women Held Power In Burnt City. Retrieved on 2007-04-11.
  8. ^ CHN Press. Female population predominant in 5000-year-old Burnt City. Retrieved on 2007-04-11.
  9. ^ Williams Jackson, A. V. (1896). "The Moral and Ethical Teachings of the Ancient Zoroastrian Religion". International Journal of Ethics 7 (1): 55-62.  p. 59.
  10. ^ a b c Price, Massoume. Women's Lives in Ancient Persia.
  11. ^ Harrison, Frances. Polo comes back home to Iran. BBC News.
  12. ^ Cotterell, Arthur (1998). From Aristotle to Zoroaster. ISBN 0-684-85596-8. 
  13. ^ Mackey, Sandra & Harrop, Scott (1996). The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation. Penguin. 
  14. ^ Dodgeon M. H. and Lieu, S. N. C. (1991). The Roman Eastern Frontiers and the Persian Wars (AD 226-363); A Documentary History. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-10317-7.  pp. 24, 67, 184, 197 and 307.
  15. ^ Toward an aesthetic of Persian painting. Early Islamic Art, 650-1100. Oleg Grabar. p.213-214
  16. ^ Women's Costume of the Near and Middle East. Jennifer M. Scarce. 2003, p.134
  17. ^ 'The modern middle east' Ilan Pappe published by Routledge 2005page 237 ISBN O-415-21408-4
  18. ^ 'The modern middle east' Ilan Pappe published by Routledge 2005 page 237 ISBN O-415-21408-4
  19. ^ Wright, The Last Great Revolution, (2000), , p.156
  20. ^ BBC NEWS | Middle East | Crackdown in Iran over dress codes
  21. ^ Graham Iran (1980) p. 227.
  22. ^ Adult education offers new opportunities and options to Iranian women
  23. ^ Nature: News Feature
  24. ^ Women Police in Iran
  25. ^ Iran's thin black line
  26. ^ Law and Women's Agency in Post-Revolutionary Iran
  27. ^ Wright, The Last Great Revolution, (2000), p. 136.
  28. ^ Wright, The Last Great Revolution, (2000), p. 157.
  29. ^ Foer, Frank, How Soccer Explains the World, HarperCollins, c2004.
  30. ^ Reuters Foundation Alertnet.org Iran
  31. ^ Lorentz، J. Historical Dictionary of Iran. 1995. ISBN 0-8108-2994-0
  32. ^ Speech by Iran's Vice-President Masoumeh Ebtekar. Link: [3]
  33. ^ Int'l Teen Princess
  34. ^ Brosius, Maria. Women in Ancient Persia, 559-331 B.C. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford Oxford University Press (UK), 1998.

[edit] Further reading

  • Piyrnia, Mansoureh. Salar Zanana Iran. 1995. Maryland: Mehran Iran Publishing.
  • Brosius, Maria. Women in Ancient Persia, 559-331 B.C. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford Oxford University Press (UK), 1998.
  • Farman Farmaian, Sattareh. 1992. Daughter of Persia: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem Through the Islamic Revolution. New York: Three Rivers Press.
  • Najmeh Khalili Mahani, Women of Iranian Popular Cinema: Projection of Progress, Offscreen, Vol. 10, Issue 7, July 31, 2006, [5].

[edit] External links

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