RIGHTS-IRAN: Predicted Rollback Hasn’t Yet Happened, Say Women Activists

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Majid Darinoush

TEHRAN, Jun 28 2006 (IPS) - Some women’s rights activists in Iran say they are not optimistic that women’s rights will make much progress under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But they also say they have not seen the deterioration of women’s status they expected when the conservative politician took office last August.

“It’s better to say the changes for the worse that we thought might happen have not yet happened,” said Shadi Sadr, a lawyer, human rights activist and member of the Women’s Centre, a non-governmental organisation in Iran.

“It appears that the most important issue that has arisen since Ahmadinejad came to office is that he wants to return women to the home and family, while the policy of [the previous, Reformist president] Mohammad Khatami was to increase the power and participation of women,” Sadr said.

Some members of the NGO point out that the government has renamed its “Centre for Women’s Participation” the “Centre for Women and Family Affairs.” They also say that the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance has directed women who work in his ministry to go home by 6:00 pm every evening so they can better tend to their families.

But some of the 12 women who serve in Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament deny that the new government wants to send women back to their homes. They say it simply wants to help women who want to work outside of their homes to take better care of their families, for example, by improving after-school child care.

“It depends on the women themselves how much they want to enter society and the workplace,” said Efat Shariati, a member of parliament’s Cultural Commission. “In Iran – for example in education, the workplace, or political or cultural areas – men and women are equal.”

Indeed, instead of rolling back women’s rights, it appears Ahmadinejad has been trying to show he wants to relax some restrictions on them.

For example, after news reports surfaced this spring that the police of greater Tehran would be cracking down on women who don’t observe what the Islamic Republic considers proper Islamic clothing, Ahmadinejad said he saw no need to put more pressure on women.

He later called for women to be allowed to watch men’s football games in stadiums. Since Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979, usually the only women who have been able to attend men’s football matches are foreigners and certain women athletes, government employees and journalists.

Four grand ayatollahs objected to Ahmadinejad’s decision, but he backed down only when the Supreme Leader advised him to reverse it. Even then, the president defended his proposal in a way that made him sound more like a reformist.

“Unfortunately, whenever there is talk of social corruption, fingers are pointed at women,” he said. “Shouldn’t men be blamed for the problems, too?”

Some women’s rights activists think Ahmadinejad’s moves were politically motivated and that he wanted to garner women’s support at a time when Iran is facing increasing international pressure over its disputed nuclear programme.

And they add that even if his government would want to reduce women’s rights in the future, it would have a tough time because women these days are more aware of their abilities and expect more rights.

In recent years, women have become more active in society and in the workplace. They now make up around 65 percent of students entering university. Women also serve in the parliament and local government.

But women’s rights activists like Faride Gheirat say Iranian women still have fewer rights than men in the Islamic Republic. She points out that women have not been able to run for president or to serve as judges.

Women also cannot have full guardianship over their children after divorce, and they get half as much inheritance as men.

“Women’s presence in society has become a lot higher since the Revolution [of 1979],” said Gheirat, a lawyer and member of the board of directors of the Iranian Bar Association. “In my own field, women won more votes than men in the most recent election for the Iranian Bar Association.”

But, she added, “The laws about women have not progressed at all since the Revolution, and actually their development has been very slow and unacceptable. There has been very little change in the family law. In courts, the right of divorce still rests mostly with the men, but we are trying to help women before marriage to write in their marriage contracts that they have the right to divorce under certain conditions.”

“And women still can’t go out of the country without their husband’s permission.”

Iranian women activists like Gheirat believe in the compatibility of Islam and human rights. They say that legal reform, supported by an enlightened approach to Islam, can help solve Iran’s problems.

But critics of this approach say the whole legal superstructure should be recreated instead of “working within the system”.

So they prefer to bypass the government and law-making bodies by taking their issues directly to the public through the media and gatherings.

And some women, like Sorur Mohebi, have been trying to become role models for other Iranian women.

She runs her own daycare centre in the mornings and a fast-food restaurant in the afternoons in Tehran.

“I want to swim against the current because I don’t believe that there are any differences between men and women who work,” the 38-year-old said. “Unfortunately, because our society is patriarchal, and men are physically stronger, if you put two candidates beside each other with the same qualifications, and one’s a man, and the other’s a woman, the man will be chosen.”

“But women are more focused,” she added, “and they have strength of mind. Society wants to tell us, ‘You are woman, get lost.’ But I want to say to Iranian women that they must believe in themselves.”

Other women, like Roya Mohseni, say women’s status in Iran’s society has greatly improved since Iran’s Islamic Revolution.

The 34-year-old is a manager in a factory in Qom, a holy city about 80 miles (128 km) southeast of Tehran.

“Before the revolution, women’s image in society was very low – they looked at a woman as an object whose body was to be used,” said Mohseni, who wears a black, head-to-toe chador. “Look at satellite television now. See how they use women to advertise a TV or a refrigerator? Look at the pornography channels.”

“Unfortunately in the United States and Europe, they talk about democracy and improving women’s positions,” she said. “But you can see it’s not like that. I’m not saying everything is great for women in Iran now, but it’s much better than before.”