by Nayereh Tohidi

This article is excerpted from a longer essay with the same title that first appeared in Gender and National Identity published by ZED Books.

The 1979 Islamic Revolution was one of the most significant turning points in Iran and the Islamic world. The Shah was deposed despite his strong links to western powers such as the U.S. and Europe, and an Islamic fundamentalist government took over under the banner of anti-imperialism and anti-dictatorship. This became a time of joyous celebration not only for the majority of Iranians but for many Muslims as a whole. Many women took to the streets and upheld the hijab (veil) as a sign of revolt and opposition. But after the Islamic Republic took over, women empowerment took a dive and the "woman question" has been a burning issue ever since.

AFTER THE REVOLUTION

Shortly after taking power, Khomeini's government overturned the Family Protection Acts of 1967 and 1975 which curbed some of men's unilateral rights. The hijab originally worn by conservative women and others as a sign of solidarity and anti-imperialism became mandatory for all women. The age of consent for girls was lowered from 18 to 13 and in some circumstances to nine. Polygamy was reinstated, as well as temporary marriages and unilateral divorce by men and custody of their children. Reproductive rights and sexuality were restricted, sex segregation was decreed in public areas, workplaces, schools, and universities and women were banned from areas of higher education such as law, agriculture, geology and archeology. A public campaign was launched tying women to maternal roles.

Those women who adhered to the "model of Islamic womanhood" and participated in the revolution gained status as bearers and maintainers of cultural heritage and religious values.' Khomeini frequently praised those women, calling them "the real teachers of men in the noble movement of Islam" or the "the symbol of the actualization of Islamic ideals." In their attempt to monopolize state power and to counter the forces of their rival revolutionaries, as well as the forces of the Left secular modernist and reformist Islamists, fundamentalist clerics had to keep their women supporters politically active in the years after the revolution. This had been a turning point in the lives of those women who mostly had a marginal and secluded status and a traditional middle-class background. Of course, the official mobilization of women was intended to strengthen the Islamic state, not liberate women.

ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

In modern Iran, the gap between infrastructure and superstructure had increasingly widened. Culture, value system, and attitudes lagged drastically behind the abrupt economic and material transitions. Structural incoherence widened the gap between "modern and traditional" sectors throughout society. The influence and penetration of Western advanced capitalism speeded up certain dimensions of development in Iran, but the totality of social transformation was impeded.

The exploitative characteristics of this process were resented and rejected by those Iranians who perceived modernization as simply imperialism in disguise. Those characteristics included a drastic and widening urban-rural gap, growing maldistribution of wealth and acute class polarization, over-reliance on petroleum and specialization in raw materials, political repression, bureaucratic corruption, societal disintegration and cultural lag.²

RURAL WOMEN

Based on the traditional model of development, men were the primary target of absorption into industry and the mechanized farms. In spite of creating new job opportunities and the generation of income for a limited number of urban women, this model of development further complicated the overall daily life and economic position of many women. With growing urbanization and rural-to-urban migration, their economic dependence on men increased.

"Modernization" failed to improve rural women's status. The increasing economic dependence on men reinforced the traditional emphasis on early marriage for women and their primary roles as the bearers of sons. The illiteracy rate among rural women remained as high as 83 percent. In a study by Shahshani, the rural changes brought about through "development" had undermined the reciprocal economic ties and obligations in the rural family, including the balance between husbands and wives in terms of workload and labor productivity.

Following men's migration, many women also had to abandon their village because of the heavy labor needed to farm and the inefficiency of tending small plots. These new migrants, who usually ended up as seasonal laborers, peddlers, or small traders residing in slums, were among the first militant groups of the masses who joined Khomeini's traditional middle-class supporters in the anti-Shah movement.

URBAN WOMEN

During the decade preceding the 1979 revolution, urban women made impressive strides in education. In 1976, 43.4 percent of urban women (compared to 6.6 percent of rural women) were able to read and write. College enrollment for women from 1971 to 1978 increased to 79 percent.³

This pattern of change contributed to an unprecedented physical and social presence of women in the public sphere. In a culture that views women's roles to be centered around marriage and motherhood, this emerging pattern of educated women threatened the traditional Muslim family structure and male domination. The increase in the number of young.

single women adopting a western lifestyle—unveiled, in modern dress, interacting publicly with men, in total contradiction with the patriarchal notions of honor and virginity—was perceived by the patriarchal mentality of many Muslim men as necessarily linked with fitna, that is, social and moral disorder.⁴

As economic class polarity widened among women, so did polarity between modern and traditional lifestyles. Women's visibility' was also resented by many women. Among the urban middle class, two layers of women emerged, the chadori (veiled) women, representing the female folk of bazaar oriented (merchants, traders, artisans, shopkeepers), traditional and religious petty bourgeoisie who were basically housewives; and the beechador (unveiled) women, representing the modernized, educated females of the newly emerging edaari, the modern petty bourgeoisie who either worked outside the home or aspired to employment.

WOMEN AND ISLAMIC "FUNDAMENTALISM"*

The traditional woman came to be increasingly portrayed as old-fashioned. Ignorant and irrelevant. On the other hand, the modern woman was said to be "Westoxicated", under the influence of Western toxic culture.

During the 1960s and 1970s, it was the better-educated, younger generation of the traditional layer who constituted the principal economic and ideological constituency of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran. It was the women of this generation who first experienced the identity crisis. Exposed to higher education, dramatically different ideas and values, and an occasional chance of a teaching career, they were soon caught up in the midst of a double bond.⁵ On one hand there was the traditional role prescribing marriage, motherhood, and domestic functions. But this role was now regarded as old-fashioned. The other, modern role was seen as a Western import sanctioned by the Shah, which implied complicity with Western intruders, nonconformity to Islamic mores, and thus a susceptibility to "Westoxication".

Caught m a dilemma, these women began to seek an alternative role model. They found it in the opposition forces and intellectuals whose call was a "return to the roots", reaffirmation of the indigenous and authentic culture. Women students who sought salvation in the new Islamic movement adopted an alternative style of clothing called the hijab-elslami (Islamic cover), which consisted of a scarf covering the hair, a tunic over a long-sleeved shirt, loose pants (or stockings) and flat shoes— all in a dark or neutral color. This style of clothing, they argued, was neither so restrictive and traditional-looking as the chador, nor as exposing and objectifying as the Western dress. It did not entail cosmetics and jewelry, thereby releasing women from excessive concern over looks, fashions and consumerism. More importantly, they believed it could enhance uniformity and reduce competition based on class and physical appearance. It promoted an asexual and serious image appropriate for political activism.

An additional reason worthy of attention here is the history of unveiling in contemporary Iran. Similar to such traditions as footbinding in China, the veil in Iran has been used to define a woman's physical mobility/ boundary in society. The veil also signified the Muslim's perception of woman's sexuality as potentially subversive. It has reduced a woman's place and role to her sexual and reproductive dimensions. The veil has thus been a mechanism of patriarchal control, as well as a political device. According to the new Islamist discourse, the readoption of hijab has served to "vaccinate" women and men against the virus of Westoxication.

The clergy skillfully manipulated the revival of Islamic ideals and emotions. The clerical leadership as well as some Islamist women activists gradually enforced the adoption of the traditional veil (chador) as the most appropriate and politically strongest statement during the anti-Shah demonstrations. This served to convince some women and to intimidate many others that a refusal to wear the veil was not only un-Islamic but actually signified complicity with the Shah and the Western imperialists.

THE POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY OF 'MOSTAZAAF' AND WOMEN

Islamist or Muslim fundamentalists usually defined the masses as mostazaafin (poor and disempowered) and the rich as mostakbarin (arrogant and powerful). Yet situating these terms within the political context of the time, they could not simply mean the poor versus the rich. For one, neither the pioneer fundamentalists, nor their primary

constituency (bazaar merchants and traditional petty bourgeoisie) represented the real poor or the lower class. The fundamentalist faction of the Islamic revivalists introduced these unconventional terms into the political rhetoric of the anti-Shah movement. They deliberately tried to replace the terms "oppression" and "exploitation" (known as part of the Left and Marxist vocabulary) with the vague notion of mostazaaf which actually blurred the economic dimensions of the conflict. The fundamentalist main concern seemed to be the Western cultural and ideological hegemony over Iranian society. The issues of control, supremacy, political power, and boundaries of identity were central to the discourse of the clerics who led the fundamentalist uprising.

The notion of mostazaaf actually projected the humiliated identity of the traditional segment of the middle class and most of all the clerics' own feeling of belittlement and weakening position in confrontation with the modernization measures. This concept was also used to retain control over the hearts and minds of the people, to protect their boundaries of influence from shrinking in areas of education, law, and media, and to reverse the shifting boundary of the women's role.

In short. Islamic Sharia, the deeply embedded system of religious law, male-biased Islamic precepts and traditional mechanisms like the veil, became conveniently meshed with political insecurity and psychological biases and fears forming an even stronger barrier against egalitarian changes in gender relations and family structure. In contrast, certain Islamic civil and commercial codes, as well as regulations concerning eating and consuming products have been modified or swept away with a bill or an Ayatollah's fatva (decree).⁶

HISTORICAL SPECIFICITY

Since the 19th century, it had always been the reformist intellectuals and forces opposing the monarch that had pushed for modernization and social change, including women's rights. But by the time the Shah's American-instigated reforms started in 1961 (under the rubric of the "White Revolution"), it appeared that the Shah had taken over the banner of modernization and women's emancipation. The progressive intelligentsia, however, was unwilling to support his measures in the wake of increasing imperialistic influence and the Shah's dictatorship. While overlooking the reactionary nature of the clerics' opposition to the Shah's modernization, the intellectuals tried to focus their fight on the "external forces of imperialism" and the Shah as the lackey or the "internal base." That is part of the reason why the Left, and even Marxists, avoided ideological debates with the Islamic opposition over democratic issues like the woman question.

But this was not the first time that Iran's revolutionaries would not address the woman question. The Constitutional Revolution (1906-1911) possessed a bourgeois-democratic character only in a limited sense, despite Its progressive and revolutionary objectives. It failed to transform the economic and political foundations of society. Monarch despotism was not replaced by a constitutional representative democracy. The state and law were not secularized and laicized and the Islamist clergy retained their influence over the state. Despite their unprecedented participation in the movement, women's suffrage was not even raised as an issue.⁷