Women’s Status, Rights and Movements from 20th Century

1905 - 1911

  • Women participated & supported men in the Constitutional Monarchy revolution. In 1906, in Tehran. The carriage of Mozaffar al-din Shah was attacked by a group of women marching in the streets. A woman, Mrs. Jahangir, an aunt of Mirza Jahangir Khan Sur-e Esrafil, the distinguished journalist who was later executed, read out loud a statement that said, in part, “Beware of the day when the people take away your crown and your mantle to govern.”
  • When protestors took refuge in the British Embassy in 1906, against the Monarch’s army, many women were among them, including Setareh, daughter of the Armenian
    revolutionary Yeprem Khan (Iranian-Armenian revolutionary leader) and a hero of the Constitutional Movement. Unfortunately the 1906 new Constitution did not grant voting and many other rights to women.
  • Many other women participated in the revolution. In 1912 Morgan Shuster wrote: “The Persian women since 1907 had become almost at a bound the most progressive, not to say radical, in the world. That this statement upsets the ideas of centuries makes no difference Having themselves suffered from a double form of oppression, political and social, they broke through some of the most sacred customs which for centuries past have bound their sex in the land of Iran.”

1907

1906 the first primary school for girls was established with the efforts of Bibi Khanoom Astarabadi.

1910

1910 Danesh, the first weekly newspaper published by an Iranian woman, Mrs. Kahal, appeared, 88 years after the publication of the first Iranian newspaper.

1925 - 1979​

  • 1932 Iranian girls were allowed to attend the university of Tehran.
  • 1935 ( 17 Dey 1314) Reza Shah implemented Mandatory unveiling of women.
  • In the 1950s numerous women’s rights organizations were created.
  • Suffrage was gained in 1963.
  • 1968, Farrokhroo Parsa became Minister of Education – she was the first woman to hold a cabinet position; in 1969 the judiciary was opened to women and five female judges were appointed, including future Nobel prize winner Shirin Ebadi. Women were elected to town, city and county councils.
  • One of the major victories of the WOI (Women’s Organization of Iran) was the Family Protection Law of 1975. It granted women equal rights in marriage and divorce, enhanced women’s rights in child custody, increased the minimum age of marriage to 18 for women and 20 for men, and practically eliminated polygamy.
  • 1977 Abortion was also made legal without arousing much public attention, by removing the penalty for performing the operation embodied in a law dealing with medical malpractice. All labor laws and regulations were revised to eliminate sex discrimination and incorporate equal pay for equal work. Women were encouraged to run for political office.
  • BY 1978 nearly 40% of girls 6 and above were literate; 33% of university students were women, 22 women were elected to parliament, and 2 served in the Senate. There were one cabinet minister (for women’s affairs), 3 sub-cabinet under-secretaries, one governor, an ambassador, and 5 women mayors.

1979

  • Women, mainly university graduates or university students, participated in the 1979 Revolution, and strongly supported it, and many lost their lives for it.

  • Why did women who seemed to have gained a series of rights under the Pahlavi regime participate in the revolution? -> In the hope of Political Freedom and obtaining Social Equity for all. Women having been discriminated through out history are especially sensitive to injustice, and take any opportunity to support human rights.

  • Under the Shah’s rule it had made impossible for intellectuals, political dissidents, and opposition groups to be openly active. There was no free press, no democratic elections, no true opposition, and a heavy-handed censorship of all media and publications existed. Along with a notorious security organization (SAVAK). And even though women had gained many rights, there were many more rights to gain to become equal with men.

  • Unfortunately after the 1979 Revolution as the Islamic faction took control, many women’s rights were systematically removed through legislation. The newly established Family Protection Laws that restricted polygamy, allowed women the right to divorce, and raised the minimum age for marriage, was repealed and contraception was banned. And it is still:

  • And it is still, impossible for intellectuals, political dissidents, and opposition groups to be openly active. There was no free press, no democratic elections, no true opposition, and a heavy-handed censorship of all media and publications existed. Along with a notorious security organization (NAJA).

1979 Onwards

  • During the early years following the establishment of the Islamic republic, an order was issued demanding adherence to Islamic Sharia law, under which women are treated as half a man; men inherit twice what a woman would, and compensation for the death of a woman is half of a man. Which also meant all women must dress in line with Islamic principles when in public, meaning all hair and skin except the face and hands must be covered. Women’s rights were severely restricted to the point where women were even forbidden from even watching men’s sports especially soccer in stadiums.
  • But women were allowed to drive, hold public office, serve in the military and attend university, with restrictions, such as women being banned from acting as judges and were discouraged from becoming lawyers.
  • The educational system has implemented fields of study restrictions and books and curriculums have been modified for girls encouraging domesticity.
  • Despite contrasts between feminist point of views and different political backgrounds, women have been working tirelessly, bravely, diligently and selflessly, individually and in groups, through appeals, legislation modifications and multiple peaceful marches, hunger strikes, and protests, to gain/regain their civil and human rights. During which many have been arrested, imprisoned, disbarred, exiled, received lashes and died. But they have been able to gain some progress in women’s rights and gender equality.
  • 1986, the Majlis voted to introduce a 12-article law which allowed some marriage rights to women. These rights included prenuptial agreements (a tool to bypass some laws, like having to obtain husband’s permission to travel, or get a divorce – were as a man can verbally divorce and have 4 permanent and multiple temporary wives), a divorced woman’s rights to share of the property, and increased alimony rights.
  • 1992, the Council of Expediency passed a law allowing women who were “unjustly and unfairly” divorced to collect payment from the former husband for services she had performed during the course of the marriage.
  • 1990 the field of law was open to women and they were permitted in the Special Civic Courts, although they cannot serve as judges. For the first time citizenship was granted to children under 18 born to an Iranian mother and foreign father; while children and spouses of Iranian men were granted nationality automatically.

Below are a few examples of the plight of Iranian women fighting for equal rights—some to their own demise.

  • 2003 The Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2003 to Shirin Ebadi for her efforts for democracy and human rights, especially focusing on women and children rights in IRAN.
  • 2009 November – The Iranian authorities seize Ebadi’s Nobel medal together with other belongings from her safe-deposit box. She lives in Exile.
  • 2009- Neda Agha-Soltan (participant of the green movement) was shot dead in the protest.
  • 2011 – Zahra Rahnavard, wife of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi was placed under house arrest since February for her role as the spokesperson of the opposition Green Movement.
  • 2013 the spokesman for the Iranian Parliament’s Justice Commission confirmed that while the Penal Code no longer prescribes stoning (to death), it remains a valid punishment under sharia, which is enforceable under the Penal Code. The most known case in Iran was the alleged stoning of Soraya Manutchehri in 1986.
  • 2015 the captain of Iran’s female football (soccer) team, Niloufar Ardalan, couldn’t play in the international Asian Cup tournament in Malaysia because her husband forbade from traveling.
  • 2017 – Vida Movahed, removed her headscarf which started Girls of Enghelab Street ( اﻧﻘﻼب ﺧﯾﺎﺑﺎن ﺗران ) movement, was sentenced to one year imprisonment.
  • 2018 lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh was imprisoned after defending a woman arrested for demonstrating against the compulsory headscarf in Iran. In 2019, she was sentenced to 12 years in prison on charges of “encouraging corruption and debauchery”.
  • 2019, Sahar Khodayari self-immolated after being arrested for trying to enter a sports stadium. Following that incident, FIFA assured that Iranian women are able to attend stadiums starting from October 2019. On 10 October 2019, more than 3,500 women attended the Azadi Stadium for a World Cup qualifier against Cambodia political backgrounds.
  • 2018, Narges Mohammadi, sentenced to 11 years for leading a human rights organization, “colluding against national security,” and “generating propaganda against the state.” She was released in October 2020 after a court commuted her sentence due to global pressure.
  • April 2019, Yasman Ariani, her mother Monireh Arabshahi, and Mojgan Keshavarz, who were sentenced to a total of 16 years for protesting the dress code, “collusion” against national security,” “propaganda against the state,” and “encouraging” moral corruption and prostitution.
  • August 2019, Saba Kord Afshari was sentenced to 24 years in prison for “encouraging” for moral corruption and prostitution, collusion against national security, and “propaganda against the state.
  • On 16 September 2022; 22-year-old Mahsa Amini fell into a coma after having been detained by the Morality Guidance Patrol, allegedly for wearing an “improper” hijab; while visiting Tehran from city of Saqqez in Kurdistan Province, Northwestern Iran. This event sparked an series of protests around the world, with the signature slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom”. This women’s protest was supported by men such as Shervin Hajipour who released the song “Baraye” as a music video which went viral online and has been called “the anthem of the protests”.
  • November 2022 and over the course of months, thousands of schoolgirls were hospitalized under circumstances that some attributed to a sequence of mass toxic gas poisoning attacks, with some eyewitnesses reporting signs of toxic gas attack.
  • Oct 5 2023 Armita Geravand, 16, suffered a “severe physical assault” at the hands of government agents for allegedly violating the country’s dress code, she was declared dead on October 28.
  • Oct 6, 2023 Narges Mohammadi The Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2023 to Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all. Her brave struggle has come with tremendous personal costs. Altogether, the regime has arrested her 13 times, convicted her five times, and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes.
  • Oct 7, 2023 Nasrin Sotoudeh was arrested again in Tehran during the funeral of 16-year-old Armita Garavand, who died a day earlier after nearly a month in intensive care. Sotoudeh, 60, who was awarded the European parliament’s 2012 Sakharov prize for her human rights work, has been arrested several times in recent years.