Ladies and Gentleman we are in the 21st
century and ironically I feel I am writing a history essay ….
This month
it has been reported in the news that women undergraduates will be excluded
from a broad range of studies in some of the Iran’s leading institutions. 36 universities have announced that 77 BA and BSc courses in the coming
academic year will be "single gender" and effectively exclusive to
men.
There
was no official reason given for this new discriminatory policy, but Iranian
officials have expressed their concern about the country's declining birth and
marriage rates, seen as partially caused by women's rising educational
attainment in the last two decades.
Iran
has been able to pride itself over the fact that UNESCO states that they have
the highest ratio of female to male undergraduates in the world and also being
the first middle-eastern nation to allow women to study at university since the
Islamic revolution of 1979.
These
university bans have now proven that this has been a farce and a clear
production of the “glass-ceiling effect” over Iranian women. There is now an apparent relationship in Iran
under the rule of the misogynist mullas,
who advocate a superior social position for men and the use of education as
means for creating a strictly sex-segregated society.
I
wanted to firstly examine to what extent we can look back at the Islamic
revolution of 1979 to help us understand contemporary issues in Iran,
especially to understand the treatment towards women.
There
have been many Iranian intellectuals who mocked the trite bourgeois culture in
the Middle East and argue that it they are imitative of Western culture.
Particularly the critique by Ahmad Fardid, a prominent Iranian philosopher who
became a huge part of the Islamic government that came into power in 1979.
Fardid
coined the term ‘westoxication’ which was popularised by similar-minded
intellectuals such as Jalal Al-e Ahmad and Gharbzadegi and then this became a
leading core ideological teaching of the new government.
‘Westoxication’
is the idea that repels the pervasive Western influence in Iranian society and
thus calling for a greater cultural authenticity and independence. In essence,
it's the idea of using the means of the educational system as a bulwark against
Western domination and cultural dependency in Iran.
I
will tell you now why I think this is particularly relevant. Kamran Daneshjou,
the Minister of science, research and technology dismissed Western criticism of
Iran's steps, saying: "The angrier Western media gets, the more we realise
we are moving in the right direction".
This
is an example of the ‘westoxication’ ambience of Iranians repelling anything
that is ‘modernising’, thus women attending universities is a step towards a
liberal egalitarian society, in other words a ‘westernising’ society.
This is by no means a declaration of my support towards
the ban, but more of an attempt to contextualise the discrimination. It is more importantly to provide a
historical and political understanding to the formation of the Islamic
republic, as it was women too who were at the forefront of the protests against
the westernising monarchy and fought for an Islamic theocracy led by Khomeini. The ideology of
‘westoxication’ spread throughout the entire nation, including women and they wanted to return what they believed was authentically Iranian.
As Ziba Mir-Hosseini
wrote:
“Like most Iranian women, I strongly supported the
1978–79 revolution and believed in the justice of Islam; but when the Islamists
strengthened their hold on power and made the sharia (or their interpretation
of it) the law of the land, I found myself a second-class citizen. This brought
the realization that there can be no justice for me, as a Muslim woman, as long
as patriarchy is justified and upheld in the name of Islam. The prevailing
interpretations of the sharia do not reflect the values and principles that I
hold to be at the core of my faith.”
The
unintended consequence of the reintroduction of Sharia in Iran and the attempt
to enforce oppressive mandates has now become the foundations of a new dialogue
between Islamic law and feminism.
This
dialogue has become a catalyst for the emergence of Islamic feminism in Iran,
that encourages new reformist and feminist voices within Islam that challenges
Iran’s legal vision.
The concept of 'Islamic Feminism' allows for the fusion
between two schools of thought: 'Islam' which is intrinsically patriarchal and
'feminism' which attacks patriarchal discourses.
It offers an authentic and indigenous emancipation
alternative to the idea of secularism. This is a growing movement amongst
Muslims, especially women, away from the inherited patriarchal Islam toward an
egalitarian Islam. Some notable Iranian Islamic feminists: Asaneh Najmabadi,
Haideh Moghissi and Zibi Mir-Hosseini.
Thus, these Islamic feminists chose to work within a system
dictated by Quranic legislation. They contend to statements made in the Qu'ran,
for example verses that discuss male polygamy, men's unilateral right to
divorce, greater rights of inheritance and legal testimony.
They also contend to the traditions of hadiths that discuss
veiling, gender segregation, and women's unsuitability for leadership of a
Muslim community. Scholars challenge these notions and re-examine these
positions. Islamic feminists are considered ‘realists’, they are aware of their
society and their political reality.
This is a pragmatic flexible activist strategy that is
reframing feminism to fit within their belief system. While they would not give up their allegiance
to Islam as an essential part of self-determination and identity there have
been successes in challenging patriarchal control.
Examples -- Feminists in Iran have succeeded in passing legislation
requiring couples to sign a prenuptial agreement granting women divorce rights
equal to men. Another success lies in the formation of Zanan has been an important journal in Iran that articulates the
Islamic feminist ideas and it has become one of the most significant documents
for studying progression in Islamic feminism.
Navi Pillay, the high commissioner for human rights said the real agenda
was to reduce the proportion of female students to below 50% – from around 65%
at present – thereby weakening the Iranian feminist movement in its campaign
against discriminatory Islamic laws.
"[It] is part of the recent policy of the Islamic Republic, which
tries to return women to the private domain inside the home as it cannot
tolerate their passionate presence in the public arena," says the letter,
which was also sent to Ahmad Shaheed, the UN's special rapporteur for human
rights in Iran. "The aim is that women will give up their opposition and
demands for their own rights."
The IRI have now taken every
available measure to prevent women from entering the society. However, when misogynist restrictions are
imposed upon female creativity to completely restrain women from making
progress in male dominated world it will prove insufficient. I will now just
sit back and watch the Islamic feminists respond to this injustice!
Sources:
Brad,
Hanson. "The “Westoxication” of Iran: Depictions and Reactions of Behrangi, Āl-e Ahmad,
and Shari ati." International Journal of Middle East Studies 15,
no. 1 (1983): 1-23.
Mir-Hosseini, Ziba. "Muslim Women’s Quest for Equality:
Between Islamic Law and Feminism." Critical Inquiry 32, no. 4
(2006): 640-641.
Shahidian, Hammed. "The Education of Women in the
Islamic Republic of Iran." Journal of Women's History 2, no. 3
(1991): 6-38.
No comments:
Post a Comment