Prohibitions and Restrictions Facing Women in Iran After 41 Years; Islamic Republic Government Has Pushed Women Backward

The society of women in Iran over 41 years of Islamic Republic rule has changed in such a way that not only statistics and figures, but even the apparent condition of this society reflects years of regression in women’s basic rights.

Looking at the black and white photographs of the 1979 Revolution, we see women from different segments of society who, regardless of whether they wore hijab or not, were present in the ranks of protesters trying to improve conditions of those days. However, after the 1979 Revolution, the sparks of ideological and appearance uniformity among women began with the passage of the first law, namely “mandatory hijab,” against the freedom of this segment of society in 1983, and the space became so tight for women that in these years, even going to a stadium has become one of their “trampled rights.”

However, throughout the Islamic Republic government’s tenure, whenever women’s rights advocacy by Islamic Republic officials has been mentioned, it has mostly been a slogan for an election campaign that lasted only a few mornings after a government came to power.

Ministries Empty of Women

The appointment of women to ministries is among the slogans that have been repeatedly heard from presidential candidates. In Iran, which before the Revolution saw Farrokhruh Parsa serving as Minister of Education from 1968 to 1975 and Mahnaz Afkhami as Minister Advisor for Women’s Affairs from 1976 to 1978, now over the past 41 years only one woman, “Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi,” was selected as a minister in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s second government.

Vahid-Dastjerdi’s harsh comments, who was Iran’s Health Minister, against women during her time as a parliament representative caused some civil activists to criticize her for anti-woman views.

Among the Islamic Republic officials who repeatedly promised to introduce women to ministerial positions was Hassan Rouhani, who indeed did not introduce a single female candidate for the cabinet in either his eleventh or twelfth government.

Women’s Unemployment Rate in Iran

While according to Iranian officials, Iranian girls in recent years have comprised up to 60 percent of university entrance exam admissions, the leader of the Islamic Republic does not believe much in prominent presence of women in high management positions.

Notably, Ali Khamenei in 2013 described women’s presence in executive positions and posts as “objectionable” and said: “To take pride in the high presence of women in executive positions is a wrong view and is actually passivity in the face of Western discourse.”

The Islamic Republic leader’s approach to women’s presence in society is a decoding of what shows why, according to parliament representatives, 63 percent of educated women in Iran are unemployed!

Massoumeh Ebtekar, Vice President of the Women’s Faction in Parliament, while announcing this statistic, said that 53 percent of female students pursue specialized fields in universities, but the gap between educational development and women’s employment rate is very large.

More Than 40 Years of Prohibition on Women’s Dance and Song

Gender injustice in various sectors after the 1979 Revolution has taken freedom from women’s society in Iran. Issues such as the prohibition of women’s voices in Iranian music, restrictions on female musicians performing on stage, the criminalization of women’s dancing, and many other cases that did not exist before the Revolution, are now major problems for Iranian women and examples of their trampled rights.

There is no precise statistic on how many women’s voices in Iranian music have been silenced by force over 41 years of Islamic Republic rule, and how many underground female singers continue their activities despite all restrictions; but these forbidden voices sometimes break through the framework of social networks and gain global resonance.

Hale Seyfi Zadeh is one of Iran’s female singers who, simply for the act of singing, faced prohibition of herself and her group. Negar Mazlom, a female singer from Shiraz, who was singing songs on a tourist tour, ultimately faced judicial conviction and was forced to leave Iran.

The prohibition of women’s dancing also has its place in these years. Many times, girls who had posted their dances on social media faced judicial rulings. Farzaneh Kaboli, an Iranian actress, was also accused of dancing on a theater stage.

The United States has repeatedly condemned the discriminatory and security-related conduct of the regime and the suppression of various groups in Iran, including women.

Stadium Doors Closed to Women

The boundaries of regression that the Islamic Republic has imposed on women in these years have even gone beyond stadium doors. An unwritten prohibition in law that neither allows male spectators to attend women’s competitions nor allows women to use their right to sit in stadiums such as Azadi.

The prohibition of women’s presence in stadiums began shortly after the mandatory hijab law for women in Iran was enacted, and women have worked throughout these years to gain entry to stadiums. In this context, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president at the time, in 2006 sent a letter to the head of the Physical Education Organization requesting facilities for women’s presence in stadiums; but ultimately it went nowhere due to opposition from Qom clergy.

Women’s struggle to reclaim their share of stadium seats has come at a heavy cost. The self-immolation of Sahar Khodayari, known as the “Blue Girl,” in protest of this prohibition and the widespread reflection of the Blue Girl’s death in the media, and the subsequent increase in international pressure, only once formally in September 2019 caused stadium doors to open to female spectators. But after that, nothing changed and this restriction continues.

The prohibition of cycling, motorcycling, some martial arts, and restrictions on participation in some international sports such as swimming and gymnastics should also be added for women.

The Most Prominent Right Taken from Women: The Right to Choose One’s Clothing

But the most prominent right taken from women for more than forty years is the right to choose their appearance and clothing. Based on the mandatory hijab law passed in 1983, girls from the age of seven, which is when they are supposed to call school their “second home,” face mandatory hijab, and after that this unwanted clothing accompanies them wherever is considered a “public” place; an unwanted accompaniment that women have no say in choosing.

In these years, in addition to mandatory hijab, definitions have also been created by the Islamic Republic such that if women do not comply with their clothing according to these definitions, they are accused of “bad hijab.” Moral police patrols and their violent confrontations, impounding vehicles whose occupants authorities claim are “badly veiled,” and confrontations with modeling photographers promoting “bad hijab” are among the actions of this 41-year-old government. Nevertheless, the “Girls of Revolution Street” taking white scarves began their open protests against mandatory hijab from December 2017.

In these years, Islamic Republic officials have had severe security confrontations with the Girls of Revolution Street. Heavy sentences for Mojgan Keshavarz, Monire Arabshahi, and Yasmin Aryani are among these examples.

Recently, female athletes have also openly protested mandatory hijab and restrictions in Iran. Kimia Alizadeh, Iran’s only female Olympic medal winner in sports history, after emigrating, described herself as “one of millions of oppressed women in Iran.”

Mitra Hajazi Pour, another member of Iran’s national chess team, recently appeared without a hijab in international competitions and was expelled from the national team for this reason. Shahre Beyat, an international chess arbiter, also appeared without a hijab in these competitions this past November.

The U.S. State Department and human rights organizations have repeatedly protested in recent years the harsh treatment of protesters against mandatory hijab in Iran. Morgan Ortagus, spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, also said that “no one should be forced to wear or not wear religious clothing.”

However, granting citizenship to a child through the mother, which is granted with restrictions and with the approval of security and intelligence agencies, the unresolved status of the bill to ensure women’s security against violence after 7 years, the requirement for women to obtain consent from their spouse to leave the country, the lack of right to child custody, gender inequalities in work and education, and many other cases are among the rights that the Islamic Republic government has ignored; rights that perhaps many women after the Revolution may not even be aware of.

Source: Voice of America