The Global-Local Intersection of Feminism in Muslim Societies: The Cases of Iran and Azerbaijan Author(s): NAYEREH TOHIDI Source: Social Research, Vol. 69, No. 3, The Status of Women in the Developing World (fall 2002), pp. 851-887 Published by: The New School Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971576 Accessed: 07-12-2016 02:49 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
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The Global-Local Intersection of Feminism in Muslim Societies: The Cases of Iran
and Azerbaijan /
BYNAYEREHTOHIDI
JL he arguments made in this paper are based on empir
ies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of A as well as on a review of studies of several other societies in the
Muslim and non-Muslim global South. Through a brief review of Iran and a few references to post-Soviet Azerbaijan, the interplay
between local and global factors in shaping the course of women's movements and feminism is demonstrated. Attention is
paid primarily to the positive impact of two specific aspects of globalization on women's movements and feminism in these two societies: the international human rights regime (comprised of the United Nations and international nongovernmental organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch) and global feminism (comprised of feminist discourses, the international women's movement, and transnational feminist net-
works). As in other countries, it is the history, internal developments, and dynamism of each society, particularly the social praxis of women, that have played the main role in shaping the course of women's movements in Iran and Azerbaijan. But external factors also, both during colonial times and in the present era of globalSOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 69, No. 3 (Fall 2002)
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852 SOCIAL RESEARCH
ization, have influenced women's mo
Muslim and non-Muslim societies
external factor for women in the M nantly of a colonial nature.
In colonial and postcolonial studi gender- and class-based differenti countries like Egypt, Syria, Iraq) countries that were never coloni Afghanistan) have been extensively movement and feminism also, colonialism or Western domination left contradictory impacts.1
The external/global factor, due to the much more deeply penetrating and transformative processes of globalization, is distinct from the colonial system of the past. Globalization, replete with contradictions, is more akin to the Industrial Revolution in its impact on societies, its intervention directly into daily life as well
as economies, institutions of governance, and world order (Gid-
dens, 1994; Held et al., 1999). Because of increasing globalization, no gender regime and therefore no women's movement in any locality (country or community) can be studied and understood without taking global influences into account. An obvious, recently illuminated case in point is the situation of women in Afghanistan. Women's status and rights in Afghanistan cannot be accounted for without understanding the interaction between the local (history, geography, geopolitics, political economy, culture, and Afghan women's own agency and struggles) and the global or international factors, including the intervention of the superpow-
ers (the Soviet Union and the United States), the regional powers
(including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran) and the subsequent interventions of international human/women's rights groups and feminist networks.
Before reviewing the case studies, some conceptual and theoretical clarification and definitions that make up the framework of this study are offered.
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 853 Globalization and "Global Feminism"
Globalization processes, especially since the 1970s, have affected feminist mobilization for change in many different societies. Feminist interventions, in turn, have aimed to affect the
parameters and direction of globalization processes (Eschle, 2001: 192). The increasing globalization and integration of the world through international trade, migration, faster and less expensive transportation, and new electronic communication and information technology, have led to a situation in which a growing number of women and men belong to more than one community. Communities and group identities are overlapping and de-territorializing, and an escalating number of individuals who become multicultural and multilingual are adopting more fluid and multiple identities (Jaggar, 1998; Appadurai, 1996). Globalization is accompanied by intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole (Robertson, 1996: 8; Giddens, 1994: 5-7) . This and other effects of globalization have important impli-
cations for gender relations and women's status in all societies. Anthony Giddens, for example, points to the indirect impact of
global processes on social pressure for democratization in the form of "the expansion of social reflexivity and detraditionaliza-
tion" (Giddens, 1994: 111). As they become better informed about new and varied political alternatives in the world, populations become less likely to accept traditional models of political and gender regimes. Globalization "allows for the subversive possibility of women seeing beyond the local to the global" (Eisen-
stein, 1997: 17). Even those who never physically leave their communities of origin are more likely now to evaluate their own lives by placing their rights, options, and restrictions in a com-
parative and global perspective (Jaggar, 1998). "Exposure to geographically disparate influences and to issues framed in a global context can encourage the reflexive scrutiny of localized traditions and behavior patters and lead to the construction of new social relationships" (Eschle, 2001: 147).
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854 SOCIAL RESEARCH
Women, especially in the global S
ter of contemporary globalization processes. Although local/national contexts are the primary sites for feminist struggles
and intervention, global/international forums such as United Nations world conferences and transnational economic struc-
tures such as the IMF, World Bank, and transnational corpora-
tions have become more important in women's lives, henc requiring feminist intervention.
Throughout the world, the debt crisis; severe "structural adjus
ment" policies; unhealthy and unbalanced patters of consum tion; plant relocations by multinational corporations from the global North to the global South; environmental degradation in both "worlds"; militarism; the trade in heroin and cocaine; and
sex tourism and international traffic in women are among the main adverse effects of globalization that concern many feminists,
especially in the global South, both in the areas formerly know as the "Third World" and the "Second World," now usually called
post-Soviet, post-Communist or new transitional economies
including Azerbaijan.2 Culturally and politically, women are situated in the vortex of contending social forces: centripetal tendencies toward increas
ing globalization and integration and centrifugal tendenci
toward nationalism and fragmentation (Jaggar, 1998: 7). As in Iran, a main concern with respect to the cultural and politic impacts of globalization is that women "are frequently taken a emblems of cultural integrity, so that defending beleaguered cu tures becomes equated with preserving traditional forms of fem ninity, especially as these are manifest in traditional female dre and practices of marriage and sexuality" (Jaggar, 1998: 7). In response to these global challenges and practical concern (such as violence, democracy, universal human rights, morality and ethics), a global discourse community is emerging amon feminists (Jaggar, 1998; Eschle, 2001). This emerging global fem inism is an outgrowth of globalization and at the same time a cri ical response to it. The beginnings of global feminism are visibl
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 855
in official and semiofficial venues, such as the
conferences on women sponsored by the U
especially their accompanying forums for nong nizations (NGOs).
The emergence of global feminism is also evi
tude of ongoing interactions among grassr transnational feminist networks addressing
concerns, such as the Network of East/West Wo
Feministas, Women Living under Muslim Laws
Global Network for Reproductive Rights (Jagga
The Interplay of the Local and the Global or the and the Universal
Intensified globalization has made conventional demarcation between the "internal" and the "external," or the "local" and the
"global" or the core-periphery model somewhat artificial as it is becoming more difficult to determine where the local stops and the global begins. The "cultural flow" of globalization is not sim-
ply from the global to the local, but also the reverse (AbuLughod, 1991: 132) and forces from various metropolises that are
brought into new societies tend to become indigenized in one way or another (Appadurai, 1996: 32). Although many feminists feel compelled to "think globally and act locally," some actions have to be carried out globally if certain changes are to take place locally.3 Given the situation of Afghanistan, for example, no local
improvement in women's status can take place without a global
action to alter present devastation. The concerns of women around the world have to be addressed, then, in the historicized particularity of their relationship to multiple systems of subordi-
nation and oppression: patriarchy and/or male supremacy at local levels (family, community, and nation) and international sexism and economic hegemony at the global level. As Uma Narayan (1997) puts it, "we need to articulate the relationship of
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856 SOCIAL RESEARCH
gender to scattered hegemonies tures, patriarchal nationalisms, 'au local structures of domination, an multiple levels." While women's movements and feminism have become increas-
ingly global, sisterhood is not global in its romantic sense, nor is
it local. Rather, women's solidarity has to be negotiated within each specific context (Mohanty, 1998; Sharoni, 2001; Bayes and Tohidi, 2001). Amrita Basu, for example, warns us against making
sweeping generalizations about commonalities among women across the globe. Such generalizations, she argues, aggravate tensions not only along North-South lines but also along other lines of cleavage, including class, race, sexual orientation, nationality, ethnicity, and religion. Paradoxically, the very attempts to univer-
salize feminism in an abstract manner or uphold certain groups or schools of feminism as the "real feminism" may make it more
exclusionary (Basu, 1995: 19). I would also suggest that, while stressing local origins, characters, and concerns of women's movements, we should also
account for universal commonalities and the significant role of the global factors that interplay with the local in shaping the objectives, priorities, and strategies of the women's movement and feminism in any given context. While theorization of the fem-
inist movements has tended toward the poles of universalization or particularism, in practice, various movements have followed a
path between these poles, thus continually undermining this dichotomy (Eschle, 2001: 202). As Alberto Melucci has described, fragmented, heterogeneous, and dynamic forms of collective action, continually reconstructed through diffuse, decentralized,
and subterranean networks, usually characterize social movements, including feminist movements in the "Information Age." He points out that however ideologically, socially, and geographically distant fragments of feminist mobilization may appear, they remain woven unevenly into a broader web of feminist activism
(cf. Eschle, 2001: 221). To conceptualize global feminism by
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 857
deliberately using the metaphors of weaving and of
Bulbeck, for example, argues that, "the world's wo ment need not be 'one' but can be many, modeled
symbol of the web or the patchwork quilt" (Eschle
Iran and Azerbaijan
Iran and Azerbaijan both belong to the Muslim wo
predominantly of the Shia branch, and as neigh located in the oil-rich and volatile Caspian region.
very different from each other in important ways.
of Iran that follows focuses on women's responses
policy of the Islamic Republic since its inception in
they have been shaped by the interplay between l factors.
In the case of the Republic of Azerbaijan (not revi
length due to space limitation), women are faced w
and post-independence socioeconomic changes th been mainly detrimental to the status and living c majority of people, especially women.4 Beginning challenges have included transition to a market ec nation-building, democratization and civil society b
wake of intere thnic strife, and bloody war over terri
displacement, and socioeconomic disruption. The
nist "transition" has included the replacement of S ian discourse and equal rights for women (at lea level) with varying degrees of Western liberalism, nationalism, and Islamism, all of which have signif implications. Ironically, in both the Islamic Republic of Iran, which shunned global (especially Western) influences, and the secular Republic of Azerbaijan, which rushed for global integration and close ties with the West, all feminist discourse, even the discourse of equal rights, was initially avoided. In Iran such discourse was labeled as
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858 SOCIAL RESEARCH
"Western and/or bourgeois," or as
Azerbaijan, women's rights or femi
iniscent of the Soviet past, or as a "
men" tendency irrelevant or harm both countries, however, the traje and responses has led them toward and consciousness of women's rig activism and demands for egalitaria though usually not within a declare
A majority of Iranian women (
joined the revolution to oppose the
But the Islamist regime that repla with forced sex segregation and at
freedoms of people, which espe
resulted in growing disillusionmen
patriarchal theocracy. Not only the
"new religious intellectuals" and an reformers have articulated demands for revision in the dominant
interpretation of Islamic texts, reform in the Islamic law (sharia),
and secularization of the legal system - that is, separation of religion and state altogether. Whether it is within a faith-based frame-
work ("Islamic feminism") or various schools of secular feminisms, gender debate and women activists and intellectuals of
diverse inclinations (religious members of the Shia majority and of minorities such as Jewish, Christian, Zoroas trian, Bahai, and Sunni Islam, as well as secular activists) have become a critical component of the growing pro-democracy and reform movement in Iran.
In Azerbaijan, as in most other newly independent republics of the former Soviet Union, the initial ethnocentrist nationalism identified women and traditional feminine roles and behavior
codes as identity markers of "authentic" Azeri women, placing women's political and civic activism within the limits of male-dom-
inated nationalist parties and centering it exclusively around nationalist causes. This pattern has begun to be questioned by
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 859
some women due to the interplay between the
international/global influences. Nationally,
Soviet conservative and regressive challenges t well as social rights; at the same time, women global feminism, gender-sensitive internationa
and gender sensitization projects sponsore
Nations. A growing interest in gender and wom an increasing number of NGOs dealing with w emerged in more recent years leading to a sort
nism" that will probably evolve into various strand future.
Having discussed some negative impacts of globalization on women's rights and status in Muslim societies elsewhere (Tohidi and Bayes, 2001) and the downside of the international factor, including the donor agencies in post-Soviet "transitional" coun-
tries, specifically Azerbaijan (Tohidi, 2000, 2003), I here limit myself to highlighting some positive gender implications of glob-
alization. My focus is on the stimulating and facilitating role that
the international human rights/women's rights regime and global feminism have been playing in influencing the trajectory of women's activism from initial Islamism in Iran and initial
nationalism in Azerbaijan toward increasingly feminist and dem cratic orientations.
"Freedom is Neither Eastern nor Western; It Is Universal"
Labeled as "Westoxicated" (gharbzadeh) , modernized and unveiled women of the new middle class were one of the main tar-
gets of the dominant anti-West discourse in the 1970-1980s. Using
religion as a tool to seize state power, and taking advantage of people's anger at the West - stemming in part from the American-
and British-sponsored coup against the popular, nationalist, and secular government of Mohammad Mossadeq that led to years of repressive dictatorship by the shah (Gasiorowski, 1991) - the ret-
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860 SOCIAL RESEARCH
rogressive clerics {ulama) turned
imperialism into an anti-modern a Women's rights and modern chang
ple a mildly reformed family la
regime that had restricted polygam
men to divorce and child custody - w
attack by the ruling Islamists.5 Wo
group to display signs of oppositio
tially, women's opposition took the f
strations and sit-ins. Later, in the fac
pursued a course of subtle, slow, ye version.
The influence of the global or international factor in the struggle for women's rights was evident in the very first display of defi-
ance in 1979, which coincided with an unprecedented massive celebration of International Women's Day (March 8). This day of celebration, signifying a sense of solidarity with women's movements globally, turned into a weeklong protest against the new pressures women faced at the local/national level: the declaration of mandatory veiling, regressive measures concerning women's rights in the family and the workplace, and the removal of women
judges from the courts. One of the most prominent banners raised by thousands of women protesters carried the slogan "Freedom is neither Eastern nor Western; it is Universal!" Such acts of
resistance or any manifestations of feminism in the 1970s and 1980s were, for the most part, ignored or branded as divisive and as "bourgeois deviations" by many secular leftists, or as Western and Westoxicated by nationalists and Islamists (see Tohidi, 1994, 1996c; Paidar, 1995). As the banner displayed in the 1979 protests showed, there has been an ongoing effort on the part of Iranian feminists to prove
that women's quest for equality and emancipation is universal rather than Western. Attempts have also been made to provide evidence for the history of women's movements in the East,
including the Muslim world. Iranian feminist scholars and
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 861 activists have tried to show that Iranian women's current search
for equal rights and feminist values is not simply a foreign or Western import, but is an authentic process with a national background, the indigenous roots of which go back to over 100 years, manifested first during earlier modernist reforms, especially the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-191 1.6 During the first decade of the Islamist regime, which coincided with the Iran-Iraq war, secular women activists, newly emerged women's organizations, and all women and men involved in Islamic or secular political opposition to the theocratic nature of the government experienced brutal and bloody repression that resulted in demoralization, exodus, and a switch to passive forms of resistance. Through a vigorous campaign, the ruling clerics prescribed and dictated a uniform and exclusively Islamic identity for women in Iran, modeled after key non-Iranian Islamic women, chiefly Fรกtima (daughter of the Prophet and wife of the first imam of Shiite Muslims) . In practice, however, this eight-century model of Muslim woman remained ambiguous, contradictory, and irrelevant to contemporary realities.
An anti-West and also antimodern, ascetic, masculinist, and
militaristic political culture dominated Iran during the first decade of the Islamist regime, especially the eight years of the Iran-Iraq War. By the beginning of the 1990s, the end of the war,
together with Ayatollah Khomeini's death in 1989, coincided with the relaxation of repression in culture, the arts, films, and
music. This was due to the loss of the country's charismatic leader, subsequent rivalry over succession, and the unfolding of ideological frictions, along with the gradual exhaustion of revolutionary zeal after a decade of violent repression of dissidents and the heavy casualties caused by a pointless war. The relative relaxation of society in general was also in line with the postwar stage of "construction" (sazandegi) promoted during the presidency of Hashemi Rafsanjani. All this led to the opening up of small spaces for intellectual
and spiritual reflections and religious and ideological debates
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862 SOCIAL RESEARCH
and revisions. Secular activism, espe seen gradually in artistic films and
journalistic writings, and the sch women's history and identities.7 I
clerical prescriptions for a restrict identity, women have been successf figuration of more inclusive, multip on the creative synthesis of Iran's modern and Western/global influ culture.8
From Sectarian Islamism to Dialogue and Global Integration
Despite the Islamists' feigned disregard of the international community's opinions, they have been quite sensitive about how they are perceived and received by the world community. Also, despite anti-Western rhetoric, in particular labeling the United States the "Great Satan," many Islamists in Iran, male and female, have a "love-hate" attitude or ambivalent feelings toward the West
in general and the United States in particular. Since the 1979 revolution, Iranian women's interest in reaching
out and attempts to do so - to interact transnational^ and establish international connections - fall into three categories: mis-
sionary and ideological, diplomatic and pragmatist, and integrative and networking.9 The Missionary Approach
The first category consists of Islamist women associated with the
ruling hardliners whose main purpose in establishing international contacts has been ideological propagation of an Islamic revolution and export of their constructed "model of Muslim womanhood" (olgu-ye zan-e Musalman) to the rest of the world (Mehran, 2002). This model, symbolized by Fรกtima, refers to a traditional patriarchal gender regime emphasizing sex differ-
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 863
enees and a sex-based division of labor rather
male-female rights and roles. Initially, most activ
was the Women's Society of Islamic Revolution,
the Women's Society of the Islamic Republic
founded by female relatives of Khomeini. Each is
terly publication, Neda, includes reports about
ally) other parts of the Muslim world or intervi converts to Islam in Western countries. One reason for the recent moderation in Neda's orientation
and in the approach of such formerly radical Islamist women i the failure of their extremist goals both inside and outside Ira
(for example, they failed to establish Fatima's birthday as
Woman's Day in all Muslim countries, and to set up Fรกtima as a
Islamic counterpart to the Roman Catholic Church's Mary) Some of these Iranian Islamist women have become less sectar-
ian in order to reach out and expand their conservative gender agenda globally across national, cultural, and confessional lines. An interesting example was a workshop they organized on "The Life and Status of the Virgin Mary" during the NGO forum at th Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Reflect ing a Catholic-Muslim alliance against feminists led by the Vatican, the underlying goal of this workshop was to propose "Virgin
Mary" as the global "symbolic model for women and perhap men ... at the threshold of the twenty-first century."10
Islamism as an ideology "exported" by these missionary women
is usually reconstructed and transformed in the context and prac
tice of each foreign community.11 For instance, their impact in one community can result in a rise in violence against women no wearing the proper hejab; in another community, they may trigger
an interest in wearing headscarves. Another reason for the incon sistency of impact is the inconsistency of the message and the mes-
senger. Many Iranian Islamists in the 1980s claimed that "contraception is anti-Islamic," and then endorsed it as Islamic when the Iranian government waged a campaign for population control in the 1990s.
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864 SOCIAL RESEARCH
Certain recent developments in va
ever, have been considered manifes
Iranian Islamism. Among them w
regime in Sudan to impose the Iran
(chador) on Sudanese women in t
increase in mufa (temporary marr
Sunni communities in countries
Women Living under Muslim Law, 1
viously permitted only by the S demned among Sunnis.12 In terms of political influence, th weighed Islamic unity in neighbor Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arab Asia, and the Caucasus. Homegrown
istan and Afghanistan have more co
Islamists. According to Shahla H
Jamaat-i Islami of Pakistan show no
of Islamism. Ordinary Muslim wom ian "excesses" and "contradictions." "What turns them off the
most is the black chador." For instance, many women were shocked to see the wife of the Iranian ambassador to Pakistan
wear very Western dress underneath her chador. Pakistani women, who maintain a colorful native dress code, often asked Haeri, "Do not the Iranian Islamists see the contradiction in wear-
ing Western clothing under their chador?"13 In Caucasian and Central Asian Muslim communities, radical Islamist women from Iran have also not been well received. For
most women in these Muslim communities, the black veil, glorified by Iranian radicals, is the most noticeable reason for dismay.
Even in the Shiite majority Azerbaijan Republic, where the WSIRI and many Iranian male Islamists have campaigned to win broad support, the Islamist trend is diverse, influenced not only by Iran, but also Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 865
In June 1992, when a delegation of 22 Islami by Zahra Mostafavi (Khomeini's daughter) visi jan, wrapped in heavy chadors in the heat of su
met with stares and disdainful reactions every Reactions were similar in Tajikistan and the r during visits in the early 1990s. On one occasi Azeri woman asked me to translate a question covered younger visitors. "Don't you feel hot black garment in this hot summer?" she asked
hell is much hotter if one fails to follow Allah's o
Iranians replied. Baffled by her response, the A
bled, "What a cruel God you have! The Allah of of is much kinder to women."14
Negative reaction internationally to the chad
and obvious that it engendered a heated deb
print media and among Islamist women activi
diplomats, and associates of the Foreign Mi
Islamist diplomats involved in transnational tr
against women delegates wearing the chado
international events in foreign countries becau
productive impact." Instead of the chador, t
wearing the modest hejab known as a manto-rusar
a long loose overcoat) that is favored by less co
women. But some extremist women Islamists should not compromise on such a "critical Is succumb to international pressures.15
For the pragmatic ruling male elite in Iran
stakes are high in the Caspian region. For both
nic and external geopolitical reasons, Azerba and sensitive place in Iran's foreign policy. In Turkey, Russia, and the Western powers over nomic influence in the Caspian region and Cen logical compromise by the Iranian government form of hejab might seem a small concession. Yet
years, a change of presidents, and then a shift
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866 SOCIAL RESEARCH
of the Majles (parliament) after th revive the debate around the ques rusari. Later, this debate resurfaced
through the more open and refor
initiated by three newly elected fe tives who are determined to wear
(manto-rusari) in the Majles. Supp
representatives, they noted that t worldwide and in Iran wear other nent, newly elected male deputies support of the new female deputie Until recently, any criticism of woman, was taboo. In May 1999, f deputies barred an elected female d taking her seat in parliament be scarf. In reaction, about 200 chado
conservative female deputy, too
protest against the Turkish deputie
of a Muslim woman." Kavakchi, how
this demonstration, saying, "I do who do not believe in democracy style of life and dress code, be it t secularists."17 She was proved corr the same Islamist women in Iran threatened to bar elected
deputies from parliament because they chose not to wear chador.
Thus, one of the first impacts of international contacts with
Muslim and non-Muslim women outside Iran, especially with neighboring Turkey, post-Soviet Azerbaijan and Central Asia, has been a challenge to the chador; a challenge that has helped open debate, negotiation, and criticism about the hejab. This interplay between the resistances of many Iranian women against the com-
pulsory veiling at national level with the international push against it has resulted in increasingly more flexible dress codes in
terms of style and color. Currently a growing number of young
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 867
women in Iran are seen with stylish clothing and c showing of good part of their hair. Some crossnational influences on Iranian Islamists in Azerbai-
jan are also noteworthy. One is a trend in support of Islamic hejab - not the chador, but the manto-rusari - among some Azeri
women. This trend is in line with a similar style worn in neighboring Turkey, but those Azeri women activists who are pushing for adoption of the headscarf are closely connected to the proIran Islamic Party of Azerbaijan (Tohidi, 2000). In late 1999, following an intense campaign and petitions, Azerbaijani Islamic women activists won a court case in support of their demand for the right to choose a hair-covered picture for a
woman's passport. Previously, the authorities in Azerbaijan refused to issue a passport with a picture of a woman wearing a headscarf. There were, however, local reasons in addition to the
international influence of political Islam behind this pro-headscarf trend. Many of the Azeri Shiite women who have begun to wear the headscarf have been able to travel to Iran for a pilgrim-
age to Mashhad or have made a pilgrimage to Mecca (in Saudi
Arabia) . One resolution they make during such pilgrimages is to wear modest dress for the rest of their lives. These pilgrimages earn women the honorific titles of Mashhadi khanim or Hajjiyeh khanim; wearing a headscarf would signify the right to such titles, which are also indicative of class status.
Another effect Iran has had on gender issues in Shiite-majority Azerbaijan concerns the so far failed attempts to formally restore the sharia in family law. Some religious authorities and even some
women have suggested legalization of "conditional polygyny" and
an informal revival of the practice of temporary marriage as a
solution to the current imbalance in sex ratios (Tohidi, 2000). Because of growing economic hardships, war, the exodus of young males, and the tradition of endogamy, a large number of young women are finding no chance to marry and raise a family. In the strongly family-centered society of Azerbaijan, this is viewed
as a "catastrophe" for women. In the mid-1990s, due to the grow-
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868 SOCIAL RESEARCH
ing rate of marriage between Azeri
tors to Baku (some already married
ried about unwanted political impl legal restrictions against such trans too, the gender-related effects of recent consequences of globalizatio tion) and local demographic and c observable.
The Pragmatist Approach
The second category, which has gradually replaced the first, draws from the new elite of professional and highly educated
Islamic women, well connected to state organs and the new bureaucracy. Their active presence at international conferences and their work to establish international connections are sup-
posed to be in the service of public relations and diplomatic strengthening of the Islamic state, especially its gender image. Yet,
in the process of their own experience with sexist barriers at the local levels and their contacts with the international community,
especially with women's organizations and feminist discourses, many have come to be less ideological, more open-minded and pragmatic, and more conscious of women's rights.
During the 1990s in many countries (for example in Latin America, as demonstrated by Mendoza, 2000), the locus of feminist activism moved extensively into the transnational arena. In
Iran and Azerbaijan, women's local activism not only became increasingly mediated by the transnational and global factors, it also experienced a shift toward de-ideologization, de-radicalization, and pragmatism. This was in part due to the UN-sponsored regional and world conferences on women that stimulated the globalization of the local and pragmaticization of the ideal by
facilitating transnational and international interactions, and interfaith and beyond confessional dialogue for both Islamist women activists and secular feminists. During the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing it was clear how the earlier,
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 869
strict ideological or missionary approach of th
of Iran's delegations was giving way to a relativ
pragmatic approach informed by UN languag rary debates on gender issues. This was strikin with the missionary discourse, sectarianism, in toward diversity, and ignorance about femin issues both nationally and internationally displa delegations at the Third World Conference on
in 1985. I was present at both conferences as and participant observer, and I noticed both ch nuities in the quantity and quality and the cla appearance of the delegations from one confer At the Beijing conference, the diversity and d
course and behavior of the Iranian participa
Their relatively tolerant attitude toward women suasions, nationalities, cultures, and sexual orientations was
reflective of the changes under way within Iran (Ghoraishi, 1996; Tohidi, 1996b).
Despite some movement toward moderation, a disturbing continuity was reflected in Iranian opposition to certain egalitarian aspects of the Beijing Platform for Action, placing Iran among the leading conservative Muslim states in alliance with conservative
Catholic states led by the Holy See (Vatican). According to Amnesty International, even during the June 2000 Beijing-Plus
Five World Conference on Women in New York, "the unholy alliance formed by the Holy See, Iran, Algeria, Nicaragua, Syria, Libya, Morocco and Pakistan has attempted to hold to ransom women's human rights."18 Nevertheless, the Islamist women's international interactions, especially at UN-sponsored conferences, have contributed to the transformation of their approach from sectarian and missionary to pragmatic tolerance. This shift, however, has been due not only
to the international/global factor but also, and perhaps more so, to the national/local factor - changing societal realities in Iran, including the economic imperatives of growing urbanization and
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870 SOCIAL RESEARCH
educational attainment among wom
"throughout the 1980s and 1990s, mo been relying on auxiliary or solely fe such as inflation, male unemploym increased women's active participatio 1999: 12). In their real lives and pract
need more compatible role models t moderation in the gender ideology of cided with a moderation in the Iranian
icy - a shift (at least among the m
isolationist and anti-West position to o
the world market and to engage in d Elsewhere I have illustrated how int
cially the UN-sponsored regional and and gender training and development UNICEF, and UNIFEM) have stimulated and facilitated the dynamism, contradictions, and process of changes within specific
Islamist women's organizations and among a number of specific Islamist women individuals, thereby paving the way for the emer-
gence of vigorous feminist discourses (Islamic as well as secular) and women's movements in Iran and, in the future, in Azerbaijan.19 Here, due to space limitations, I will only quote from an article in a right-wing paper - known for its misogynist and antidemocracy positions - that lashes out against women's interna-
tional contacts elfter the Beijing conference. This is just one example of the anxiety hard-line Islamists feel about the impact such conferences have had on the women participants - and their reaction to the relatively moderate position the supreme leader was compelled to take during his speech on the occasion of the "Woman's Day" a few months after the Beijing conference. In order to deceive public opinion, particularly the inexperienced women of Muslim countries, world conferences
and international congresses on women are held nowadays one after another by the Mafia forces of Zionism. They use
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 871
all sorts of tricks to impose their satanic goal
societies step by step. . . . What is the use of t
Day" and "Woman's Week" during which our pi made to perform public shows and ceremonies
us of the propagandist demos of the Soviet bloc ["idolatrous," that is, Western] states? . . . Wh
gained from wasting the state budget to send gates to various countries in the world and wha
teria for selection of the delegates? . . . Ho
protecting our young and naive women who t these conferences from the bad influence of the West? . . .
Has not the rise of the divorce rate to 17 percent terrified our authorities involved in women's issues? . . . Those influ-
enced by the "Western model of woman". . . can not appreciate our family values and our women's primary identities as mothers and wives.20
One of the UN requirements for a delegation to participate in the Beijing Conference was the preparation of a reliable, jargonfree national report on women's conditions. During the prepara-
tory meetings for Beijing, many elite Islamist women were compelled to come up with a reliable report. The prepared report, which noted the lack of accurate statistics about women, was sent to the ruling male elite organs for confirmation. Apparently, it revealed an embarrassing situation regarding women, and
so was held up and went through several changes. This example
of the eye-opening, educational, and challenging process of preparation for a world conference on women brought home the relevance of women's studies and feminist literature. Thanks to
the women's press such exposures to international feminisms went beyond the elite women. Reports on world and regional conferences on women and about the participation of Iranian NGOs
and governmental organizations have usually appeared in women's magazines like Zanan, Farzaneh, Payam-e Hajar, and Payam-e Zan.
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872 SOCIAL RESEARCH
Furthermore, since 1990, Iran had be
the 45 voting members of the UN Com Women (for three consecutive perio Iranian Islamists leverage to impose th provided the individuals involved with exposed to global discourses on women
to comply with some internation
Women's sports and transnational g
active arena for international contact
Favezeh Hashemi (daughter of forme sanjani), an active sportswoman hersel role in this area.
As in many other authoritarian regimes, a large number of the women organizations in Iran, usually headed by female kin of the
ruling male elite, are state-connected or state-controlled. Since Mohammad Khatami's presidency (in whose election women and youth played a key role), however, there has been considerable increase in and activism of the "third sector" and the NGOs,
although many of them, particularly women NGOs, are now under political pressure (primarily by the conservative faction) and have had a difficult time maintaining their independence. Before looking at the role of the nongovernmental sector and the
third category of international connections, another transnational factor in Iran - Afghanistan - should be pointed out.
The gender dimension of the interaction between Iran and Afghanistan is particularly interesting. Despite the Taliban's extremist version of Islamism, especially with regard to women, Iranians perceived it as a product of the United States and its ally,
Pakistan, a political rival to Iran in the region. Many Iranian Muslim reformers have identified the views, especially the gender atti-
tudes of conservative Islamists in Iran, with those of the Afghan Taliban. For the Iranian conservatives, this has proved to be dam-
aging in the electoral campaigns. For instance, in her Zanan edi-
torial against conservative deputies in the fifth Majles who proposed a law for sex segregation of hospitals, Shahla Sherkat
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 873
began with this polemic: "The path you have
Afghanistan!"21 Reform-oriented Islamic women lar feminists in Iran, have emphatically opposed
idence in Iran by millions of Afghan refugees m
them more aware of and resistant to Taliban rul
Another piece of evidence of the ironic impac
Taliban's version of Islamismi is related to th
Mohsen Savidzadeh. A prominent cleric known f
for women's rights and feminist theology
Savidzadeh was imprisoned and defrocked for w per article critical of the conservative clerics in
and preach a Taliban-like version of Islam in the
His more subtle and damning point was that many interpretations, including the Taliban's
choice of how to interpret Islam is just that, a ch The Integrative and Non-Governmental Approaches
The third category includes independent and d women activists and feminists inside and outside Iran who have
sought international connections with women's organizations in various parts of the world. Their purposes have included earning publicity for their cause, exchanging ideas and experiences, gaining a support network and solidarity in their fight against sexism and repression in Iran, and becoming a united part of the international women's movement. The size and diversity of this category have been increasing as more women, religious as well as secular, members of religious minorities and Muslims, inside as well as outside Iran, join the forces of reform movements or the
radical opposition because of their disillusionment with the Islamist state.
Long before President Khatami's call for a "dialogue among civilizations," women's rights advocates had been trying to estab-
lish an international dialogue, especially to "normalize" public attitudes toward Western women and to shatter the prevalent negative stereotypes on both sides of "Western feminism" and "Mus-
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874 SOCIAL RESEARCH
lim women." Most women intellec
feminists in Iran have been interest
national events, particularly the i
ment. Women activists in Iran, inclu
have not limited themselves to ally
Muslim world. They have shown as about the discourses, struggles, and Muslim and nonreligious sisters in ing world.
The Women's Press De-Centering of
De-Essentializing of "Western Fe
The efforts to discover the nation
of Iranian feminism and argue fo
women's movement in Iran have no
larism or disregard of the universal
importance of international/global movements in the West and Western feminism. Promotion of
modernity and its distinction from Westernization, and de-essentialization of notions like the "West" and "Western" have been significant and sensitive aspects of the new counterdiscourse among advocates of "new religious thinking" (nov andishiye dini) as well as secular feminists in Iran. This has occurred in parallel to efforts
in the West by many scholars, writers, and feminist filmmakers
against essentialized and monolithic understanding of Islam and negative stereotypes of Muslims, especially the view of Muslim women in Iran as mere victims and passive products of religious fundamentalism.
During the early years of the Islamic Republic of Iran, supportive words about Western women and feminist movements were
taboo. But recently, even prominent Muslim women reformers such as Jรกmila Kadivar, a deputy in Majles, have spoken of "the sig-
nificance of the international women's movement and its positive
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 875
impact on the improvement of women's status in I moderate and reasonable attitude toward the West and a more
global rather than isolationist approach to feminism and th
women's movement seem to be spreading among many Islamic a well as secular women activists. But while secular feminists stress
universal commonalities, Islamic women emphasize cultural differences. Rather than a fascination with the West and emulation
of Western women, as was the case under the previous regime, or the hostility and negative essentialization of the West and Western
feminism, which has been the agenda of the ruling Islamists, the new generation of women activists (including Islamic reformers)
calls for a "normal relationship with and a balanced appreciation of weaknesses and strengths of the West, including its feminist experiences." In a spirit similar to that of Narayan and Harding
(2000), an Iranian secular feminist of the new generation, Ahmadi Khorasani, calls for "decentering the center," moving away from Eurocentrism to a polycentric global approach: We have always looked vertically and not horizontally. I am
speaking more to the establishment of stable and lasting relations with our female neighbors. Maybe they can help us more effectively, because our situations are a bit more
similar. Why should we always place more value on the West? While I am not condemning a look to the West, I'm also pointing to what's nearby. Look at Egypt; for example,
they have a very strong history of a women's movement. Why not learn from their experiences? (see Ahmadi Khorasani, 2000). Nevertheless, deconstruction of the negative and stereotypical image of the "Western woman" in general and of feminism in par-
ticular has remained a delicate and precarious task. The women's press has used every possible occasion to pursue this goal, slowly but consistently. It was only in the early 1990s that, for the first time, classic feminist literature from Britain, France, and the
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876 SOCIAL RESEARCH
United States began to be translate
book chapters, and in the pages of th and it has been followed by works of
World" feminists.24 The journal Za
Shahla Sherkat, played a pioneering ro
to what some call the "Islamic feminis
a challenging voice within the refor
lenge of Islamic feminism that has arise
had to be taken more seriously by th female allies. Conservative Islamist institutes and authorities have
organized seminars and produced publications to counter and combat what the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has called "the threat of feminist tendencies among our Muslim sisters."27
Zanan has not been alone. In addition to Payam-e Hajar (Hagar's Message), edited by Azam Taleqani, and Farzaneh (Learned), edited by Mahboubeh Abbas-Gholizadeh, which slowly and more cautiously followed suit, a number of more recent women's publications such as Hoquq-e Zanan (Women's Rights), edited by Ashraf Geramizadegan (former editor of Zan-e
Ruz), Zan (Woman), run by Fa'ezeh Hashemi (and banned after one year), and especially Jens-e Dovom? (The Second Sex?), have adopted an integrative and pluralistic approach and have tried to provide a new representation of the West, Islam, feminism,
and the global women's rights movement. The most internationally oriented and independent new publication on women is Jens-e Dovom, which has been coming out as a periodical anthology since 1998 under the editorship of a young secular feminist
publisher, Noushin Ahmadi-Khorasani.28 Since 1998, she has also begun publishing a global-oriented Women's Calendar (Salnameh-ye Zanan) for the first time in Iran. The first issue of the calendar was harshly criticized in certain conservative publications and in threatening communiquĂŠs by vigilantes trying to "alert revolutionary people and government authorities, especially the ministry of culture, against the danger of feminist and deviant historiography . . . that promotes the pre-Islamic era,
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 877
unworthy women, and symbols of promiscuity . foreigners."29
Zanan and more recent periodicals like Jens
Hoquq-e Zanan have tried to place current femin
discourse in Iran's historical perspective and a show hidden links between the Iranian women's movement and
global feminist movements. They have pursued an inclusive and internationalist approach, trying to bridge the gap between feminisms of various orientations, secular and Islamic, liberal and rad-
ical, by including writings and biographies along with photographs of non-Iranian, non-veiled Western or non-Western,
as well as veiled Iranian women (artists, movie stars, writers, activists, workers and scholars), and translations of feminist liter-
ature, including introductions to various feminist theories and description of feminist organizations and women's NGOs.30 Along with the women's press, women writers and artists, espe-
cially filmmakers like Rakhshan Bani-Evtemad and Tahmineh Milani, have been playing a significant role in the cultural reconstruction of gender attitudes of, women's roles in, and the images of Iranian women at both national and international levels.
Diaspora Feminisms
Another influential local/global element in affecting feminism in Iran is the role of exiles and migrant women in diaspora communities in the West. In the past, because of language and geopolitical barriers, the women's movement in Iran found it difficult to
establish international connections. Compared to women in colonized countries, few Iranian women were armed with the lan-
guages of colonizers, which are also the languages of global feminist discourse. This, however, is changing, thanks not only to the growing numbers of highly educated women inside Iran, but
also to a rise in the presence of Iranian women abroad. In the past, mostly men could go abroad for various purposes. Iranian
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878 SOCIAL RESEARCH
women who live abroad have beg
between Iranian feminists and fem world and facilitate connections of the Iranian women's movement with NGOs and women's movements in other countries.
According to Shahin Nava'i, in 1999 there were 97 Irani
women's groups outside Iran, with the largest concentration in Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia.31 Diaspora women activists have contributed to the women's movement inside Iran
at different levels, including the political, informational, theoret-
ical, technical, and organizational. They have made these contributions through teaching, research, women's activist groups, and, more recently, Internet sites.32
The activities of diaspora Iranian women include raising international awareness and mobilizing international pressure, especially that of the international human rights community against violations of women's rights in Iran; mailing literature and supplying women activists inside Iran with materials and scholarly works published abroad; carrying out research on women in Iran (some of which gets translated and published in Iran as well as abroad) ; helping the women's press financially through distribution and sales of its materials among immigrant communities abroad; and
providing Iranian women's rights pioneers with international
forums, transnational connections, and visibility by inviting them
to international academic conferences or political meetings.
Among the most internationally active vocal feminists in Iran are two prominent lawyers and recipients of several international human rights awards, Mehrangiz Kar and Shirin Ebadi, and writer
and publisher Shahla Lahiji. Following their participation in an international conference on the Iranian reform movement (in Berlin in April 2000), Kar and Lahiji and a number of male dissident intellectuals were arrested. Ebadi, too, was later detained and tried behind closed doors for her defense of student activists.
Thanks in part to an intense campaign by international human rights organizations, the three women were released on bail after being detained for a few months.33
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 879
The active and established women's press in tently criticizes the misogynist conservatives a
the reformers and the "new Muslim intellectuals
dirti) about their passivity toward or negligenc Question." The monthly Zanan, for example, ha lish a series of interviews with prominent Islami clerical and lay, forcing them to address women ologically and theoretically and with regard to po inist women scholars from inside and outside Iran have also
contributed to these debates by criticizing the shortcomings Islamic reformers concerning gender issues.34
Prospects for Feminism ?
Such lively gender debates and intellectual confrontati
between feminists and leading intellectuals, or between wom deputies and conservative authorities, did not exist in the ea years of the Islamic Republic, nor during the previous regim Yet, women in Iran have a long way to go before they see pr found changes in favor of equal rights; an immediate barrie the present sexist laws - including the constitution itself, wh needs fundamental amendment.
Women in Azerbaijan, however, have already benefited from a secular and egalitarian legal system, thanks in part to the Soviet legacy. The main barrier to the actualization of women's rights in Azerbaijan is not the legal system, but the persistence of a modern male supremacy within an authoritarian and corrupt polity (due in part to the Soviet legacy), and the socioeconomic hazards of marketization in an economy that is an oil-based monoculture, dominated by trade instead of production, and suffering from poverty, unemployment, the commercialization of sex, and the
trafficking of women and narcotics. In Azerbaijan, as in many other post-Soviet republics, these trends, which are associated with Westernization and sexual "freedom," have provoked defen-
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880 SOCIAL RESEARCH
sive and reactionary attitudes - re
servative nationalists - that empha
bodies and their sexuality, reprodu
While the prospect for a strong f clear in Azerbaijan, in neighboring for vibrant civil rights and women
nist orientations. Despite conserva Iranian women NGOs and the wom ative and courageous activities. For young and old women activists (in
have dared to celebrate Internat
interventions are becoming visible and reform movement within var
becoming visible in families, the p
factories and other workplaces, mosques and seminaries, and amon has become the blind spot in Ira that is becoming intertwined wi democracy and women's/human r Notes
xFor a summary on the findings of this vast literature, see Ahmed (1992) andKeddie (2002).
2For discussion on these issues, see, for example, George (1992); Enloe (1990); and Taggar (1998).
3See Caplan, Alarcon, and Moallem (1999), especially the chapter by Caren Caplan and Inderpal Grewal, "Transnational Feminist Cultural Studies: Beyond the Marxism/Poststructuralism/Feminism Divides." 4On Azerbaijan, see Heyat (2000) and Tohidi (1996a, 1998, 2000, and 2003).
5For information on the male-biased legal changes brought about by the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially in the early years of its rule, see Tohidi (1991).
6For the history of the women's movements in Iran, see Bayat-Phi
(1978); Sanasarian (1982); Nashat (1983); Paidar (1995); and Afar (1996). 7See, for example, Lahiji and Kar (1993).
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FEMINISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES 881
8On women in contemporary Iran, see, for exam
Sanasarian (1992); Moghadam (1993); Tohidi (199
Hoodfar (1996); Mir-Hosseini (1996); Friedl (1997); Esfandiari (1997);
Najmabadi (1998); Nakanishi (1998); Poya (1999); Keddie (2000); KianThiebaut (2002). 9Some portions of the following section are an updated and modified version of a similar discussion presented in Tohidi (2002).
10For an extensive discussion on the Catholic-Muslim alliance around
gender issues during the UN world conferences, see Bayes and Tohidi (2001, ch. 1).
1 distinction should be made between Islam and Islamism and between Islamic and Islamist. While Islam and Islamic refer to the reli-
gion or faith and its cultural influence, Islamism and Islamist denote a political ideology and force that is determined to seize state power. 12A1 though promoted by some Shia ulama in both Iran and Azerbaijan, many Islamic women groups have remained critical of mufa marriage. For an anthropological study on mufa in Iran, see Haeri (1989). 13Author's discussion (5 March 2000) with Shahla Haeri, who has carried out field research in Pakistan.
14Author's observation during field research and Fulbright lectureship in Azerbaijan, 1991-1992. 15An example of an Islamist woman insisting on upholding the black chador as the symbol of Iranian women's "religious and national identity" is Soraya Maknun, who holds a Ph.D. from an American university and is a professor at Al-Zahra University in Tehran.
16See, for instance, the statement made by Elaheh Kula'i in the
Tehran daily Aftab-e Emruz, 18 Esfand 1378 (8 March 2000): 1.
17For sources of citations and further discussion, see Tohidi (1999).
18News release issued by Amnesty International. AI Index Act 77/008/2000 (5 June 2000). 19On the case of Iran, see Tohidi (2002) and on Azerbaijan, Tohidi (2003).
20Mohandes Mohammad-Ali Ramin, Sobh 65 (Dei 1375/December 1995).
21See Zanan, no. 42 (Farvardin and Ordibehesht 1377/ April 1998): 2.
22On Savidzadeh and ongoing gender-related debates among the
Iranian clerics and intellectuals, see Mir-Hosseini (1999, 2002); Afshar (1998); Najmabadi (1998); and Paidar (2001). 23See the chapter on the Beijing Conference in Kadivar (1996). 24In the years before the 1979 revolution, translation of only a few Western feminist writings, such as The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir,
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882 SOCIAL RESEARCH
were published. More popular among t translated works of Russian and Europ Kollontai, Clara Zetkin, and Rosa Luxem cans like Domitila Barrios de la Chunga 25For the evolution of Shahla Sherkat
feminist reformer and the collaboration nists like Mehrangiz Kar, see Kar (2001 26On "Islamic feminism" or Muslim fe
for example, Paidar (1996, 2001); Mir 2002); Najmabadi (1998); Kamalkhani (2000); and Torab (2002). 27Cf. his lecture given during a meeting with women deputies on Octo-
ber 6, 2001 (BBC World Service http://www.bbc.co.uk/
persian/news/011006_vleader.shtml). Also see Shafiei Sarvestani (2000). 28Due to recent wave of repression against the reformers, especially the reformist press, Jens-e Dovom was closed but its editor has replaced it
with Fasl-e Zanan (Women's Season). 29See, for example, " Khatar-e gerayeshha-ye ertejavi dar taqvimnegari . . ." Jomhuri-y e Eslami 5756 (9 Ordibehesht 1378/April 1999): 7. 30For more concrete examples of such transnational efforts by the women's press, see Tohidi (2002). 31See Ava-se Zan 38/39 (Winter 1999): 18. 32Examples of Internet sites on Iranian women in Persian or in Eng-
lish and Persian are: www.badjens.com; www.iranianfeminists.com; www.womeniniran.com; www.iwsf.org; and www.irandokht.com 33In addition to these three women, several students and intellectual
reformers, including some progressive clerics like Yusefi Eshkevari, are still either imprisoned or under persecution by the Revolutionary Court for speaking out against theocracy and extremist Islamist ideas and policies, including gender politics. 34See, for example, Zanan 57-71 (December 1999 to January 2001). References
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