Persian Woman

  Persian Woman usually refers to a woman of or from the traditional  Persia culture.
Although she is seen as Iranian, the Persian woman need not be from any specific nationality or ethnicity, and can be thought to be associated with any of the peoples sharing the Persian culture.

Persian women in history

It is an indisputable fact, that at Persepolis, where stone preserves the ideas and ideals of ancient Persia, women are absent. All the splendid reliefs and noble statues carved at the peak of empire represent bulls, maned lions, winged stallions, and warring men. Even the servants who walk behind the kings swinging fans or swatting flies are men. But it is not ancient ruins that attest to the power of Iranian patriarchy. It is society itself. By nature, Iran's society has always been a patriarchical one with the degrees of freedom for women differing in various eras. Some historians in fact argue that it was Cyrus the Great who, ten 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 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.1 But even if one were to accept this theory, it wouldn't change the fact that the view toward women in Iran changed significantly with the arrival of Islam in Iran. At the dawn of the 20th century, many Iranian modernists who had traveled to Europe for higher education, came back to view the Islamic veil as a symbol of backwardness. Its removal, in their view, was essential to the advancement of Iran and its dissociation from Arab-Islamic culture. For the counter-modernists who wanted to uphold the Islamic social and gender orders, the European woman became a scapegoat and a symbol of corruption, immorality, and Westernization. In the Iranian body-politic the imagined European woman provided the subtext for political maneuvers over women's rights and appearance in the public space. Iran's Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11 became a turning point in the lives of Iranian women. Women participated in huge numbers and gained important positions for expressing their views, including journals, schools, and associations that flourished in the following period (1911-24).2 But the defeat of the constitutionalists (1921-5) and the consolidation of power by Reza Shah (1925-41) had two contradictory impacts. Independent women's journals and groups were destroyed, while the state implemented social reforms such as mass education and paid employment for women. Reza Khan also initiated his controversial policy of Kashf-e-Hijab, banning the wearing of the Islamic Hijab in public. But like other sectors of the society in those years under Reza Shah's rule, women lost the right to express themselves and dissent was repressed. With the advent of Iran's revolution in 1979, women's rights took yet another wild swing toward religious conservatism. Despite the decree of many of Iran's top clerics such as Ayatollah Taleghani, the state, under the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini made wearing the Hijab mandatory for all women, implementing strict religious codes for women in society.
In May 1997, a large number of women participated in presidential elections and overwhelmingly voted for Hojatolislam Mohammad Khatami, a reformist cleric who had promised reduction of repression and toleration of civil society institutions. His election opened a period when women could voice their ideas one again, with many becoming increasingly bolder in their demands and in their criticisms. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian human rights and feminist activist, further emboldened Iranian feminists inside Iran and cemented their relationships with Iranian feminist activists abroad. The Sixth Majles saw the emergence of some of Iran's most strongest advocates of womens rights. Almost all of the 11 female lawmakers of The 190-seat Majles took on the challenge of trying to change some of Irans more conservative laws amidst a male dominated culture. Sadly, during the elections for the Seventh Majles, all of those representatives were banned to run for office by the all male Council of Guardians, only allowing conservative females to run for election. The new representatives, as expected, upon their arrival into office began reversing many of the laws passed by the reformist 6th Majles.

Famous Iranian women and female entities

Further Info

Sources

  1. The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation, by Sandra Mackey. (Penguin Group, 1996).
  2. J. Afary, The Iranian constitutional revolution, 1906-11. Grassroots democracy, social democracy, and the origins of feminism, New York 1996.
Iran Woman

 

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