Iran - Andrew Burke [37]
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Nine Parts of Desire, by Geraldine Brooks, is an insightful look into Muslim women’s lives. The author interviews women throughout the Middle East, including, in Iran, Faeze Rafsanjani and Khomeini’s widow.
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The last shah gave women the vote in 1962 and six years later the Family Protection Law, the most progressive family law in the Middle East, was ratified. Divorce laws became stringent and polygamy was discouraged. The marriage age was raised to 18.
Many Iranian women were active in the revolution that overthrew the shah, but it’s safe to say that few foresaw how the adoption of a version of Sharia law and the Islamic Republic would affect their rights. Within a couple of years of the revolution women were back in the hejab (veil) – and this time it was compulsory. The legal age of marriage for girls had plummeted to nine (15 for boys), and society was strictly segregated. Women were not allowed to appear in public with a man who was not a husband or a direct relation, and they could be flogged for displaying ‘incorrect’ hejab or showing strands of hair or scraps of make-up. Travel was not possible without a husband or father’s permission and a woman could be stoned to death for adultery, which, incidentally, included being raped. Family law again fell under the jurisdiction of the religious courts and it became almost impossible for a woman to divorce her husband without his agreement, and in any case of divorce she was almost certain to lose custody of her children. Women holding high positions – such as Shirin Ebadi, who became a judge in 1979 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 – lost their jobs and many gave up promising careers.
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Daughter of Persia, by Sattareh Farman Farmaian, is an engaging memoir by the daughter of a Qajar prince who introduced social work to Iran. It covers much of Iran’s modern history and illustrates the changing roles of women.
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However, women did not disappear behind a curtain this time. Iranian women had tasted emancipation, and they resisted a total return to the home. There were many rights that women did not lose – such as the right to vote and the right to hold property and financial independence in marriage. In fact, the rates of education and literacy for women have shot up since the revolution for the simple reason that many traditional families finally felt safe sending their daughters to school once Iran had adopted the veil. Women make up about two-thirds of all university entrants, though their subsequent employment rate is well below 20%. Although women’s importance in the workforce is acknowledged – maternity leave, for example, is given for three months at 67% of salary – there is still widespread discrimination.
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The website www.badjens.com is an Iranian feminist online magazine mainly addressing readers outside Iran.
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In 1997 Reformist president Khatami was voted in by mostly women and young people, promising change. By 2001, there were 14 women in the Majlis and calls to improve women’s rights became louder. Among the most prolific Islamic feminists is Faezeh Rafsanjani, the daughter of the ex-president, who herself was a member of parliament, a magazine proprietor, an academic, a mother and an Olympic horse rider.
The Khatami period brought a series of hard-fought minor victories. The Reformists managed to win the right for single women to study abroad, to raise the legal age for marriage from nine to 13 for girls (though they had proposed 15), to defeat an attempt to limit the percentage of female students entering university and to improve custody provisions for divorced mothers. However, a woman’s testimony is still only worth half that of a man in court and in the case of the blood money that a murderer’s family is obliged to pay to the family of the victim, females are estimated at half the value of a male. Sigheh (the Islamic practice of temporary marriage) is seen by many as a sort of legalised prostitution.
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In the Eye of the