Women’s Status, Rights and Movements pre -7th C.E.
Pre- 7th century A.D.
Based on Shahnameh: There were strong women in traditional roles as mothers, daughters, lovers like Farangis, Rudabeh, Tahmineh; and a few queens such as:
- Azarmidokht زآرﻣﯽدﺧت, was Sasanian queen of Iran from 630 to 631. She was the second Sasanian queen; her sister Boran (Pūrāndokht) ruled before and after her.
- Gordāfarīd (دآﻓرﯾد ) was a champion who fought against Sohrab and delayed the Turanian troops who were marching on Persia. She is a symbol of courage and wisdom
- Humay Chehrzad was a legendary queen of Iran from Kyanian dynasty.
Archeological excavations: at Shahr-e Sookhteh (Burnt City), a prehistoric settlement located in the present-day province of Sistan- Baluchestan, revealed that in the 7th – 4th centuries BC, the city’s women held high socioeconomic status. For example, 90 percent of the seals discovered in graves belonged to women. These seals represented the tools of trade and governance and their possession indicated economic and administrative control.
The Persepolis fortification and treasury tablets belonging to the early Achaemenid dynasty (5th – 4th millennium) reveal that women of the royal court traveled extensively. They often personally administered their own estates. It is also known that the queen and her ladies-in-waiting played polo against the emperor and his courtiers. Ancient Persian women also fought in wars as soldiers.
Women’s Status, Rights and Movements 7th – 19th Century
7th – 19th Century
Women’s life and work were at the household level or to benefited the family, business owners, and the state. Rural and lower-class women were mostly involved in carpet weaving, embroidery and production of: clothing, textile, butter, fruits, and tea. They also worked in silk and cotton manufacturing as well as other handicrafts. Later on, women were also employed at mortuaries, public bathhouses, and in more affluent houses as maids, wet nurses, and nannies. In more populous cities women worked as entertainers, dancers, or prostitutes. Even though some women were given the ability to earn a wage, they still did not have many rights, it was still possible for rural girls to be sold by the head of their family.
1848
Tahereh Qurrat al-Ain, a poet and a Babi, at a gathering of Babi leaders in Behdasht in 1848, took off her veil and demanded emancipation for women. She was executed in 1852.
1891
A collective women protest: In the 1891 revolt against the tobacco contract with British Régie, following the clergy’s Fatwa banning smoking (tobacco boycott), the women in the Nasir al- Din Shah’s harem quit smoking and his servants refused to prepare his water pipe. During boycott, Zaynab Pasha led groups of armed women who would shut down tobacco shops that had reopened under government threat.