Behrouz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Director of the Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University
Behrouz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Director of the Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University
Esha Momeni
Esha Momeni is a doctoral candidate and teaching fellow in the Department of Gender Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She holds an MA in Mass Communication. Since 2006 she has been active in Iranian women’s rights issues by taking part in various projects. She has also worked in the fields of music, playwriting, photography, animation, and video documentary. In her doctoral dissertation, through an analysis of the lyrics of Iranian Shi’i mourning songs in their political and social context, Esha explores shifts in the relationship between the Iranian state, popular culture, and the work of mourning and memory that have occurred since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
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Iran: Imagining Gender in an Indigenous Democratic Socialism
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In my paper I will address the question of gender equality regarding the possible emergence of an “indigenous and glocal democratic socialism” in Iran. A citizen’s social and political equality is not only one of the core values of a democratic socialism but necessary to its success and sustainability. Gender equality is a prerequisite to social and political equality.
Today, the dominant global discourse of gender equality is shaped within the framework of feminism, a product of Western nineteenth century history. Do we need to “delink” the gender question in Iran from Western feminist discourses? How would gender politics change in Iran if there is an indigenous democratic socialism in place? Does an indigenous democratic socialism need an indigenous gender politics?
Most 20th century Iranian male intellectuals and public figures, I will argue, failed to see the importance of gender relations while Iran was moving from a traditional society to a modern one. A few others, such as Ali Shariati, addressed the problem and tried to resolve it by creating a liminal space for Iranian women between a traditional devoted Muslim woman and the woman as a citizen in the modern state. However, they were unsuccessful in offering a concrete solution.
In this paper, I draw on feminist political theories and Islamic feminism scholarship to emphasis on the importance of gender relations in the development of an indigenous democratic socialism in Iran. I argue that in order to decolonize gender relations, we need to pay attention to the ways in which masculinity has reshaped through the modernization processes. I build my argument through investigation of gender and identity in the work of major Iranian public intellectuals in 20th century. The paper argues that although these intellectuals were critical of Western hegemony, they adapted Western Orientalist views, seeing Muslim women as passive, ignorant, and religious subjects. They preserved their masculinity and downplayed the social and political role of Iranian women in 20th century. Moreover, this study provides some examples of counter-hegemonic gender discourses in early modern Iran, offering an entry point for mapping out a new perspective on gender transformation in modern and contemporary Iran.
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