Economic Discrimination and Gender Discrimination in Iran Have a Strong Connection; Exclusive Interview with Mina Khani

Recently, the preliminaries for converting the “Population Youth Plan” into law were finalized with approval in the Guardian Council. A plan that, aside from its many negative consequences such as increased child marriage or disease prevalence among women due to lack of access to hygiene and preventive facilities, is an example of discrimination against Iranian women. How do you formulate this plan—law in the context of discrimination against women?

In free societies, the discussion related to ownership of one’s own body is fundamentally one of the most important debates of emancipation. When we talk about this concept, we don’t just mean that women can walk comfortably in the street without fear of sexual violence. No! When we talk about emancipation, we actually mean that “political, economic, and social subjectivity” that women achieve through their own liberation. This law or the Population Youth Plan itself, and certain provisions in it such as the prohibition of abortion and essentially the use of women’s bodies as a reproductive apparatus, is completely related to the policy of “domesticating” women. As long as this view of girls and women exists that you must be mothers who bear children, it means you are expected to remain further removed from social relations. For example, some European societies have tried to define childbearing in relation to women’s employment position in a specific economic system and have more space for it, yet we still see that when women become pregnant and have children, they are to some extent removed from the existing economic order. For example, the decision to have children should be based on and in accordance with their employment position and timing. Now, consider that in a society like Iran with all those reactionary laws about women and severe economic pressures that exist, how much this form of law (the Population Youth Plan) that further restricts access to contraception carries heavy consequences.

If you pay attention to Ali Khamenei’s statements in recent years, you constantly see that he emphasizes the issue of childbearing and population growth in Iran. This is while in previous years, the government had concluded that to some extent they should control population, but the shift in the government’s approach toward militarization changed the course differently. In fact, our civil society has overlooked an important point; that there is a serious connection in the policymaking of the Islamic Republic of Iran for becoming a regional power and its insistence on increasing the country’s population and its effort to do so through women. In fact, whenever the government wants to create a military situation, it always encourages population growth, and in post-war periods it always encourages population control. For example, in the period after the Iran-Iraq War, policies based on population control began, and families were advised to have at most one child and at most two children. This of course had nothing to do with the ideological order of the Islamic Republic and actually still viewed women as a reproductive apparatus. However, the reasons for population control in those years had different justifications. For example, the sex ratio in society had been disrupted and the number of men had decreased, or the crisis of families without breadwinners that the Islamic Republic had to solve. In the current period, however, the Islamic Republic insists on military policies. Militarization always requires soldiers and requires lives to be killed. All governments that engaged in militarization, including Nazi Germany, encouraged mothers to have more children. All societies that suffer from the problem of war, even their lower classes, emphasize this childbearing. Between this way of viewing women as only meant to have children and this militarization policy or war situation, there has always been a strong connection, and we now see that both are occurring simultaneously in the Islamic Republic.

On the other hand, in recent years, some women’s movements in response to such laws have carried out activities like free distribution of contraceptives in deprived and poor areas, or spontaneous campaigns that emerged to counter AIDS. In fact, the launch of campaigns related to AIDS was not just free distribution of condoms or contraception. In a sense, it was not just a charitable approach, and discussions formed around this movement about what should be done to prevent this disease (AIDS) from spreading, and these discussions themselves led to the emergence of a movement. Now the Islamic Republic, by enacting such laws and dealing with activists and restricting freedom of expression, counters the possibility of similar movements forming, and thereby solidifies a kind of social order.

Gender discrimination in Iran is formulated in various ways; from existing discriminatory laws to the patriarchal attitudes present in society. In your opinion, what has been overlooked or less attended to in the formulation of gender discrimination in Iran?

The relationship between gender-based violence and economic violence in relation to Iranian women is often not addressed together. Many times these issues are presented in contrast to each other. It seems that those who present an image of Iranian women experiencing government violence present an image of women from the middle class and above. Of course, I don’t believe in this concept of middle class, because using middle class for women needs to be specifically defined. For example, women in this same middle class are subjected to unpaid labor, and in fact these women themselves do not have independent and direct access to the elements of middle-class economics. For example, these women don’t own property, or if they do, the scope and method of access to middle-class economic facilities are largely controlled by men of this class. The reason for this is actually one of the points connecting these discriminations, in the sense that the same discriminatory and misogynistic laws that exist in the text of Islamic Republic laws leave men’s hands open to exercise economic violence against women. From the issue of unequal inheritance and unequal blood money, which symbolically show this discrimination, to the situation of women’s employment in Iran, which is in a lamentable state. Women occupy many university positions, but fewer jobs are available to women, which shows another dimension of the cycle of inequality and discrimination. According to statistics, currently 18 percent of the female population is employed, and we know that a large number of this small percentage of employed women belong to the lower class of society and receive wages much lower than men. In fact, this statistic tells us that the remaining 82 percent of women lack direct and independent economic income. In such circumstances, government laws that prevent women’s freedom of action and take away their choice (from the choice in marriage and having children to the choice of city, workplace, or university) are precisely related to the government’s policy of economic marginalization. Now this situation is compounded by the overall economic and class situation in Iran today. Dire class and economic conditions prevail in Iran that, aside from the issue of gender discrimination, have driven most Iranians toward economic marginalization. In these circumstances, it can be said that women’s situation is far more difficult. It should be added that women’s lack of financial independence also increases the possibility of sexual violence. For example, an employer can easily commit sexual violence, and a worker, being forced to receive wages, remains silent about it. A clear example of the connection between sexual violence and economic violence.

To what extent has this aspect of discrimination against women, which actually has particular and pronounced importance in Iran’s current situation, been addressed?

We know that discussions and opinions exist throughout the world that poverty has a feminine face. But the situation of Iranian women and a few other countries in the world is a very special and unique situation that is often overlooked and not paid attention to. Unfortunately, the prevailing image presented of discrimination against women loses the connection between “economic discrimination” and “gender discrimination.” That is, when discrimination against women is raised, unfortunately sometimes an image of women experiencing government discrimination is presented as if most of them are in good or normal financial situations. In a sense, the representation of having a “middle-class” face, in terms of lifestyle and way of life, in some women’s rights movements causes their economic situation to be equated with middle-class standards. But my emphasis is that this view is not only a prevailing media view, but all those who insist on the class issue unfortunately have an understanding of the class issue that does not see this “interaction” of class and gender issues. If they do see it, they don’t address it much, or they don’t consider these discussions “worth addressing,” and when they want to address class and economic problems and sufferings, they pretend as if the majority of society, women, and women’s movements consist of people who don’t have many economic problems and are only seeking to achieve their basic rights like rights over their body and choice of dress. Whereas it should be said that these (economic problems and gender discrimination) are not at all separate from each other and are not in conflict and contradiction with each other. The relationship between a law that makes the hijab mandatory and a situation that marginalizes women in this way in a patriarchal family institution that they have no financial independence at all, is a strong relationship. In fact, they have a legal and juridical relationship that adds to the difficulties and sufferings of women’s society with the existing class situation. In a sense, in such laws themselves (laws that limit women like mandatory hijab, etc.), there is a kind of economic discrimination.

Do you mean that essentially one cannot separate the forms of discrimination (legal – cultural – social) from each other? How do these aspects of discrimination connect at one point?

In fact, it should be said that social patriarchy cannot be separated from existing law. Because laws and the government’s propaganda apparatuses cultivate and strengthen the problem of social patriarchy and actually ideologize and systematize it. In this sense, it should be said that the same apparatus that commits “gender-based violence” is the same apparatus that is systematically engaged in “economic marginalization,” and these two issues are advanced together. Therefore, neglect or loss of any of these components causes this connection between these two issues not to be seen. It should be said that there is a serious misunderstanding about how to raise the gender issue. Specifically, I must say that workers’ class movements and women’s movements, instead of reaching an agreement on this issue, stand “face to face” with each other at many points.

How does this confrontation take place? What is a clear example of it?

For example, on the issue of mandatory hijab, for a long time, the group that represented the movement against mandatory hijab never talked about the economic issue, or if they did, it was not much connected to the issue of mandatory hijab. In this sense, the representation of the struggle and women’s movement was a representation of the group of “middle-class women” who are only seeking to make the hijab optional. On the other hand, leftist currents and approaches had a resistance to “understanding the necessity of addressing the issue of mandatory hijab.” The problem here was that both of these two sides did not see the “interaction” of economic discrimination and gender discrimination.

My experience as someone from the leftist current and who has always participated in discussions and debates in various circles, virtual spaces, and articles and intertextual discussions about class struggles is that we were always confronted with a concept called the “middle-class” movement. In fact, the leftist current always called women’s movements and movements against gender discrimination “middle-class movements,” and in fact, according to them, the work of these movements only benefits a part of women’s society and overlooks disadvantaged women and ignores working-class women. In my opinion, apart from the criticism leveled at the representation of these movements against gender discrimination, it should be noted that the very subject of eliminating forms of discrimination that have only gender formulation helps empower women from an economic perspective. For example, you cannot say that the issue of mandatory hijab for working-class women does not entail “economic violence.” Why? Because through mandatory hijab, the problem of gender segregation is explained, and through gender segregation and the ideological system, the issue of restricting women’s participation in many professions comes up, and ultimately that a large section of women is pushed to the margins. In my opinion, the situation of women in Iran is a special class situation that is directly connected to the issue of mandatory hijab. On the other hand, in today’s Iranian society, if a citizen wants to resist mandatory dress and so-called “bad hijab” and from this path engage in civil disobedience, they must pay a fine. That is, if condemned to whipping and unable to pay the fine equivalent to the sentence, they are forced to endure whipping. In a sense, the struggle against mandatory hijab is more difficult and harder for women who have little economic benefit. On the other hand, very heavy collateral and mechanisms of the judicial apparatus in dealing with activists and fighters against mandatory hijab means that this struggle in the true sense is harder for a group of women who lack financial independence. In this one example of the mandatory hijab issue, we can see how strong the connection points between economic discrimination and gender discrimination are, but in political formulation, much attention is not paid to this issue.

Do you think that currently this political formulation is being defined by the female activists themselves in civil and political movements? Many say that any form of change in Iran’s future is very feminine and is in serious connection with women’s movements. How much do you agree with this interpretation?

This interpretation seems correct to me as well. A new generation of women joined the struggles of gender and class discrimination, many of whom are independent women and from the “margins” who joined these movements. People like Sepideh Qolian are actually individuals who, without having affiliation to intellectual currents or political circles, independently joined the struggles, and in a sense, it can be said that these women broke the clichés of fighting gender and economic discrimination. In fact, these female activists show that their concerns are not only gender discrimination, and these concerns intertwine in other fields as well. In recent years, the number of women who had continuous activity in civil activities and struggles against discrimination in various fields has increased. In my opinion, the main reason for this can be examined from several perspectives. On one hand, the more economic violence increased, the more it grabbed women by the collar. Because of the gendered nature that class violence itself has in Iran; precisely due to the ideological system. On the other hand, as the situation became politically unstable and currents like reformism collapsed as a political hegemony, civil activists got the opportunity to address issues such as gender and class discrimination more. In fact, the radicalization of the social and political space has created an opportunity for some voices that were less heard to be heard more than before. At the same time, we must acknowledge the power and influence of social networks. In fact, this space has caused political and social discussions to come out of the grip of certain individuals and their formulation of it, and we are increasingly witnessing what is colloquially called Grass-root movements. In fact, these types of branched networks explain the internal situation better and are more rooted and come from the roots. Currently, we can see that this issue (raising silent voices) has increased, but it has not yet taken hold. For example, in that political formulation, the previous view still exists, and the activities and presence of these figures have not been able to bring about serious changes. An example of this could be the Iranian “Me Too” movement. In this movement, many women who came to talk about their experiences of violence and sexual harassment were basically in conditions of complete economic non-independence, and this caused a serious obstacle to them speaking. Usually, due to economic dependencies or social limitations, they were forced to either not narrate their own accounts of discrimination and sexual violence, or to speak about it very carefully so as not to be recognized at all. The common perception or common myth is that women who speak about their experiences of sexual violence are essentially doing this to be “noticed,” whereas based on my activities in this field, based on statistics, I can say that most of these narrators are recognized more by the activists themselves in this field and are not widely known, except for a very limited few cases. That is, even this is in a way connected to financial independence and economic conditions. This is aside from the fact that essentially in law, the issue of “rape” is not formulated as a crime and is formulated as “adultery,” which in fact in the Islamic Republic’s law there is a kind of moral view of the issue of sexual violence and it is not looked at from the right angle. After a long period of calling the “Me Too” movement “middle-class,” very recently the voices of many narrators of this movement have emerged saying that it’s not like that at all, and we don’t have good economic status, and where does this perception come from that we have a good life and have no worries, and now on this pretext we want to seek attention through sexual violence?

Do you think the reason for the harsh and severe treatment of female activists by the government stems from what perspective?

There are two very important issues about the Islamic Republic; one is economic corruption and the other is an authoritarian ideological order. The question is, through what ideological order does the government of the Islamic Republic consolidate this corrupt economic, social, and political apparatus? In fact, we are facing a corrupt political and economic system, and people constantly ask why it doesn’t collapse? They ask how far inflation will continue to rise or how the problem of increasing poverty will be solved? These rulers, who don’t even know how to govern the country, with this multitude of problems, how have they remained intact? One can briefly answer these questions by explaining that this is a dictatorial government, but this is not sufficient to explain the current situation. In a sense, the dictatorship of the Islamic Republic of Iran has differences compared to the dictatorship of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Differences from the perspective of the way the Islamic Republic of Iran defines itself ideologically. You can see that the ideological order that the Islamic Republic of Iran has defined is formulated through the control of women’s bodies and the creation of this gender segregation. Any time this gender formulation in Iran changes, the ideological order of the Islamic Republic is destroyed, and its corrupt apparatus also faces collapse. The government knows that for the economic and political corruption it has initiated, it needs an ideological order, and much of this ideological order is actually produced through this very control of women’s bodies. In fact, the presence of female activists in civil and political struggles is a kind of confrontation with the ideological order of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and that is why the way the Islamic Republic treats and attacks female activists in various fields is harsher and more violent. On the other hand, through “stigmatization” of female activists, which is actually based on patriarchal beliefs in society, the government tries to damage the image of female activists. In fact, the government is trying to limit the activism of female activists through these tactics. Activists who have continuous serious presence in various fields from justice-seeking movements to class-based movements, and the government wants to reduce and minimize the scope of their movement. In fact, limiting women’s movement among different civil and political movements causes some activists to sometimes not reach an understanding about this issue of ideological order, and causes weakness in these movements, a point that the government is well aware of and has used against activists for a long period. For example, we see that in the 1980s (2000s Jalali), discussions of sexual violence in prisons were raised, but until a few years ago when people like Sepideh Qolian, Narges Mohammadi, and Atena Fard did not talk about the issue of sexual harassment in prisons, the issue of sexual harassment in 1980s (2000s Jalali) prisons was in silence. Because this was essentially a taboo. Even among the activists themselves in political and civil circles, those female civil activists who bear these stigmas and move within these movements and even through their bodies connect these movements to each other are very “dangerous” for the Islamic Republic, and the government has serious problems with them.

Source: Iran Human Rights Campaign