Emma LaVopa
Mr. Druffel
10/15/19
Conference Paper
Philosophy of Gender, Race, and Sexuality
Have you ever felt constricted, like something is holding you back from what you have always wanted to do? Having someone tell you, people like you shouldn’t do that is an inferior feeling that people want to escape from. The women of Iran have felt this way too many times. Instead of the perpetrator being a schoolyard kid, it’s the government and it’s the law. During the 1930’s Iran was under the rule of Reza Shah, a man who forced women to unveil. He instructed policeman to tear off anyone wearing a hijab. This was a vigorous and cruel action. The hijab was a custom and women didn’t know much else therefor having this taken away from them by the people who are supposed to protect and serve them was extremely difficult to comprehend. Shah took this to another wrongful level by forcing men to bring in unveiled women in order to receive their works pay. What was his reasoning, why did he suddenly assemble this action? He wanted to westernize, he thought that by disregarding the years old hijab would make women, and essentially Iran, more like western civilizations. Is that how you would westernize an area? So, I thought, how can Iran become westernized? For starters, they could’ve simply made the hijab a choice, having free will is a big component of western civilizations as is the type of government they have. They could have also expunged the thought that in changing the appearance of women, the country would westernize. Reza Shah was rightfully bombarded by the British and his place was taken by his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Where do the rights of Iranian women go from here? After Pahlavi became ruler, he reinforced the wearing of headscarves during the Islamic Revolution. This was an interesting time because although some women were grateful that they could put their hijabs back on, they didn’t enjoy the fact that they had to. People deserve options not ultimatums, and the women of Iran knew this wasn’t fair. On the other hand, during this time more and more women began getting an education and seeing a female in the workplace was not uncommon. The integration of women outside of common household work was coming alive and the drive these women had was relentless. Women started experimenting and expanding on what made them happy and their personal interests. As a result of this a big beauty community developed in Iran, many jobs held by women are that of the makeup industry. It is extremely rare so find a woman of high power in Iran unless they were born into it. Iran’s civil code has a lot of fine print that us easily overlooked and disregarded. As stated in article 1117 “The husband can prevent his wife from occupations or technical work which is incompatible with the family interests or the dignity of himself or his wife.” This is stating that yes, women can work but only if given permission from their spouse. A man can deny the right their wife has to a job simple because they feel less dignified because of it. There is not much gender equality at all in Iran and most of that discrimination comes from their doctrine of law. Although there are people that disagree with it a difference won’t be made until the government changes its aged ways. Even in an initial marriage in Iran, there is a contract that states extreme specifics of what the women can and can not do. Such as “Married women […] need permission to travel abroad unless their marriage contract makes clear that the husband has already relinquished such power.” Although women can deny these limitations, they shouldn’t be available for action in the first place. A rise in women attending University has been documented and compared with results from the Iranian Revolutions over half of all Iranian women have sought out a higher education. These restrictions would make it extremely difficult for a female student to study abroad if given the opportunity. Amongst this want for intellect, more restrictions were imposed on women. The ban of females taking courses such as ‘science and engineering’ was conducted and this did not receive the best responses. An interesting aspect of this was that the ban came after “statistics showing that women were graduating in far higher numbers than men from Iranian universities and were scoring overall better than men, especially in the sciences.” Was the halt on certain higher educations for women imposed because men felt lower in status of intelligence compared to that of women? They can’t take some competition. Why do they always need to feel like they have all the power? Maybe its their custom and they know nothing else, the restrictions on women is nothing new to Iran in fact it’s been a part of their culture for centuries. In modern day Iran the rights of women are still struggled with. There was a big upcoming involving the allowance of women to enter stadiums, in recent events, to attend a soccer game. Although this was a step in the right directions for giving the women in Iran more freedom, there are still various restrictions that aren’t necessarily known by the public. After various protests from society on the ban of women entering stadiums and a tragic story of a women who passed away after lighting herself on fire for facing a six-month sentence due to entering a stadium disguised as a man, the government became slightly lenient. In a stadium able to hold 78,000 only 4,000 women were granted entrance. Various media videos depicted an empty stadium and a small yet loaded region set aside for the females. Many women lined up outside hoping to get a ticket but were denied at the door. Indeed, it was a monumental moment for those inside and out, but what was the reason for the female limit? The entirety of that stadium could’ve been overflowing with female fans of whom they could’ve made money off, yet they were turned down. Trying to understand the logic of the government and stadium owners is absurdly troubling. More and more freedoms are being granted and women have learned how to handle certain situations. Even though the women of Iran still face scrutiny in their day to day lives, things have taken a turn for the better.
Citation Page
Glavin, Chris. “History of Education for Women in Iran.” History of Education for Women in Iran | K12 Academics, 6 Feb. 2017, https://www.k12academics.com/Education Worldwide/Education in Iran/Women’s Education in Iran/history-education-women-iran.
“Iran: Exit Procedures for Married Women .” Refworld, ACCORD, 12 June 2017, https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/5943a4e54.pdf.
“THE CIVIL CODE OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN .” WIPO, https://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/ir/ir009en.pdf.
Panja, Tariq. “Iranian Women Allowed to Attend Soccer Game for First Time Since 1981.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Oct. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/sports/soccer/iran-women.html.
Sedghi, Hamideh. Women and Politics in Iran. Cambridge .
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