IRANIAN W OMEN BEFORE AND AFTER THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION

In January 1978, a revolution took place in Iran. This revolution, known as the Iranian
Revolution or the Islamic Revolution, consisted of a series of events which main objectives
were the overthrow of the Persian Monarchy that had reigned in the country for more than
2000 years and its replacement with an Islamic republic governed by Ayatollah Khomeini,
the leader of the revolution. It caused a great impact in other Islamic countries which were
trying to fight against Westernization as well as the division of the inhabitants into those
who felt proud about their country and those who fled since they were ashamed of it. The
Islamic Revolution supposed socially and politically a before and after in this country, and
so it did regarding to women. The aim of this essay is to analyse the rights and liberties of
women before and after the revolution.

Women’s attempts to achieve equal rights date back to the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Approximately, women’s rights movements began during the Constitutional Revolution, at
the end of the Qajar dynasty (1905-1925). During this period, women reclaimed rights
such as the improvement of literacy, their health and the prevention of polygamy and
domestic violence.
Some time later, Reza Shah the Great, founder of the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran, introduced
the change of the dress code with the abolition of the hijab (the veil) on January 6 1935.
Before that time, the law forced women to cover their whole bodies except their eyes and
hands. He believed that this was an oppressive, obsolete tradition whose purpose was to
deprive women of equality of rights. However, it’s worth highlighting that many Western
historians believe that it should have been a progressive step if women had decided to do
it themselves (Chehabi, 2003). Instead, this ban humiliated and alienated them by beating
them or taking their veils off if they were wearing them in public. In addition, it is said that
his real intention was to westernise Iran, due to his concern of feeling embarrassed about
the Iranian culture in front of Western people.
In regard to women’s liberties and rights, his successor Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi
should be given credit for contributing to help women achieve full emancipation in the late
60s by creating ‘The White Revolution’. This program was completely designed in favour of
Iranian women. In

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The White Revolution introduced the ‘Family Protection Law’. This law’s purposes were to
allow women to initiate divorce, to raise the legal age for marriage for girls from 15 to 18,
to eradicate the practice of polygamy and give females the right to be elected in
government positions.

According to the data that Mansour Kashfi published in the American Thinker magazine
(Kashfi, 2017), “in the last parliamentary elections during the monarchical government in
1978, a year before the Islamic Revolution, millions of Iranian women voted. Out of 99
female candidates, 19 were elected to parliament and two to Senate”. Women also
acquired new posts as Ministers and started to play an increasingly active role in public life
by obtaining higher education, which facilitated them to get better jobs.

Nevertheless, this situation began to change after the success of the revolution and the
proclamation of the Islamic Republic.
In Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel ‘Persepolis’ (Satrapi, 2016), it is
explained how the changes introduced by the new government smothered women’s rights
and freedoms. First of all, the use of the veil became mandatory again. This action was
taken because women’s hair was thought to produce feelings of desire in men. Those who
did not wear it were spoken in a vulgar manner and were insulted, since they were
dressed inappropriately in the eyes of the law.
The Islamic Revolution introduced drastic consequences to make sure that nobody would
stray from the path of Islam. Consequently, ‘morality police’ were put to ensure that women
covered their hair and bodies properly and to discourage cosmetics. There had been
several forms of the morality police in Iran from 1979 until now. The current one, given the
name of ‘Gast-e Ershad’, is in charge of lashing and arresting women who do not obey the
Islamic law. It is specified by law that women are not allowed to wear perfume or even
shake hands with men, and those who wear lipstick are violently punished by getting their
lips cut with a broken glass. “Many women’s faces have been permanently scarred by
acid, thrown at their faces by Islamic fascist secret police”(Kashfi, 2017).
In protest against the morality police, women (usually from a prominent social class)
frequently wear their veils as far on the head as possible, or wear looser clothing.
Apart from the imposition of the hijab and complying with the dress code, we can observe
inequality in other fields, such as law: as dictated by Iranian law, a woman’s legal
testimony is considered half as valuable as a man’s. Also, the polygamy has been

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reinstated, the legal age of marriage for girls has dropped to 9 and the custody of children
in case of divorce is always for the father. Additionally, women that want to get divorced
have to ask their husbands for permission, while men can do it without even telling their
wives.

Besides, we can find absolute segregation of sexes in public areas such as sports centres,
public transportation and schools. Regarding to education, co-education is obviously
inexistent. In higher education, women must seat at the back of lecture halls and are
obligated to write their questions to their teachers on a piece of paper, since it is thought
that their voice could excite male students. Despite of this deplorable situation, it is fair to
note that the number of women enrolled at all academic levels has increased after the
revolution, growing the literacy rate from 28.7% in 1976 to 85% in 2005, or the number of
university graduates from 209,163 in 1996 to 1,227,886 in 2008, as claimed by official
statistics (UNICEF). UNICEF considers that even though this supposed a great
advancement for Iranian women, their participation in the Iranian society remains low.
Iranian official statistics show that the rate of female economic activity is 14.3%, but it is
difficult to evaluate accurately rural women (who suppose the majority of the workforce,
and whose opinion is not considered valid due to their lack of access to education)
employment since there are no accurate statistics.

In addition, it is remarkable to mention that feminist movements are starting to emerge and
have a voice in this country. The most popular one, which has caught global attention, is
the one leaded by the New York-based Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad. This movement
started in 2014 from a facebook page named ‘My Sealthy Freedom’, where women
uploaded pictures without the hijab or dressing like men to freely walk on the Iranian
streets. Unfortunately, this has had consequences to many of them. This has been the
case of the model Elham Arab, who had to apologize to Iran’s Revolutionary Court for
‘promoting public promiscuity’. The activist Masih Alinejad has also been affected, since
she had been condemned to 5 years in prison and 74 lashes and had to flee after that to
avoid more confrontation with the morality police.

In conclusion, although gender equality was never close to be reached, this country has
given a step backwards in regard to human rights. In the Iranian society women feel
oppressed by a government which imposes the use of the hijab instead of letting it be a

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personal choice and proposes cruel repressive measures to those who complain, criticize
or protest against the government or the Law. Instead of self-criticizing, the regime often
compares their situation with Arabia Saudi’s in order to seem more progressive and to
ignore this issue. Fortunately, women are starting to oppose the repression and hopefully
there will be a day in which they’ll be able to walk on the streets freely and be treated the
same way as men in the eyes of the law.

REFERENCES
Ali, D. A. (2010). Iranian Women After the Islamic Revolution. Conflicts Forum, 6-8.
Iranian Revolution. Retrieved from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution
Kashfi, M. (19 February 2017). American Thinker. Retrieved from American Thinker's
website:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/02/iranian_women_before_and_afte
r_the_islamist_takeover.html
Lyton, C. (23 May 2016). Women in Iran are cutting off their hair and dressing as men to
escape the 'morality police' . The Telegraph.
Moorhead, J. (3 June 2018). The wind in my hair: one Iranian woman’s courageous
struggle against being forced to wear the hijab . The Guardian.
Mouri, L. (3 September 2014). Center of Human Rights in Iran. Retrieved from the Center
of Human Rights in Iran's website:
https://www.iranhumanrights.org/2014/09/gender-segregation/
Satrapi, M. (2016). Persepolis. Barcelona: NORMA.
UNICEF. (s.f.). UNICEF: Islamic Republic of Iran. Retrieved from UNICEF's official
website: https://www.unicef.org/iran/girls_education_1643.html
Women in Iran. Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Iran

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