Women in Iran

During the Iranian Revolution in 1979 transformed Iran’s political,social,and economic structure. Secular Laws were replaced with Islamic laws creating an outburst. Women were often abused,raped,treated as slaves,and accused of false imprisonment. These tortures things that most women had to face are against the Islamic religion.

Iranian women have to depend quite frequently on men to survive. Women aren't even allowed to travel unless they have permission of their husbands or fathers. Marriage also is a crucial element to an Iranian woman's life. The legal age of marriage is nine years old and most women are not allowed their husband of choice. Women are also not allowed equal rights to divorce. It is only under extreme conditions, such as insanity of their spouse, that they are allowed to file for divorce. Even in the event of the divorce, the father has legal custody of boys after the age of two and girls after the age of seven. It is also crucial to have a husband because if women are involved in any other voluntary sexual

Women are also not allowed to touch the Quran when they are in their period. Holm describes this as the devaluation of women in contemporary religion. Also the fact that in the sacred texts, there are mainly features of male gods, prophets and there are not a lot of women in the scriptures, and if there is, it is only anti-stories about them such as the story of Adam and Eve, eve being the woman and the deceiver and the story of Mary Magdalene the prostitute. Finally religious laws and customs give women fewer rights than men for example in divorce and how many spouses that they can marry.

Throughout centuries of human existence, women have been deemed as inferior to men in multiple different cultures and religions. Men have developed a norm to be the individual who carries out duties to help maintain a stable life for himself and the family in which he is providing for. Because of this fundamentalist approach towards how society should be, women’s rights have been suppressed throughout political, social, and cultural actions. The Islamic religion in particular, is fond of abusing the rights of women and empowering the rights of men in such a way that it has created a permanent existence of conflict within countries who follow Islam. In fact, in the Quran it states that women must have lesser authority than men, therefore their

Iranian women have to depend quite frequently on men to survive. Women aren’t even allowed to travel unless they have permission of their husbands or fathers. Marriage also

unequally in marriage, in court, and in society. Difficulty through marriage for Muslim women can come from age, divorce, and having to be subservient to their husbands. Not only is there difficulty in marriage, but also in the unequal treatment in the islamic justice systems, such as when “evidence given by a female witness counts for half that given by a man” (Dargie 22). Although the societies of major Islamic countries differ, it is clear that women are not represented equally to men in any of them, for example having to dress and act certain ways so as not to attract any attention from men. However, there are Islamic women who are willing to change how their religion views females by speaking out and encouraging others to do the same.

In “An Introduction to Muslim Women’s Rights,” Azizah al-Hibri discusses how patriarchy affects the interpretation of Quran. She argues that Muslim jurists that interpreted the Quran and Islamic Law, lived in a patriarch world. Their views about men and women are based on the patriarchy in their societies, hence, their interpretation of the Quran and Islamic Law represents patriarchy. Al-Hibri argues that throughout the Quran, God emphasizes his Oneness and says that all humans were created by him from one soul. This emphasizes the concept of tawhid; there is no God but Allah and that Allah considers all human beings equal regardless of their gender. Furthermore, she argues that for Allah, the one who is the most pious is the most honorable, hence, gender plays no role and does not make one superior than the other. Moreover, she argues that considering men to be naturally superior to women is the same mistake that Satan committed. He considered himself to be naturally superior to others and refused to bow to Adam. Aziza Al- Hibri also gives suggestions for what important changes need to be made in order to improve the status of Muslim women in the society. She argues that any interpretation that may be harmful towards any member of the society should be re-evaluated, which include issues such as guardianship, polygamy and divorce, so that Muslim women are given the rights that their religion gives them. Al-Hibri’s work is useful for my research as it argues that the way jurists translated the Quran was affected by the society they lived in. Hence, they interpreted the Quran in a patriarchal context and manipulated it to validate that men are superior to

In 2001 women declared a separate entity from her male guardian. In 2002 women started receiving secular education. In 2011 women received the right to vote. All women are well educated and now have the right to vote, but they are still subject to male dominance under extremist view of Islamic law. They still have to be escorted by a male guardian in public. Women are not allowed to interact with men they aren’t related to. The main problem they fact today is sexual exploitation from being sold into prostitution or human tracking for cheap labor in poor working conditions. It’s almost as if they went backwards all the rights women had well before western countries, has been taken away and now they desire to gain them

There are many ways in which Iranian cultural expectations are different from the western cultural expectations. They are different in regards to citizens’ rights and gender norms.

In some societies, women in the judicial process have very few rights that are the same as men, and their punishment seems to be much greater. Treatment by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and by other groups such as the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood all contribute to how women are treated legally. Zohreh Arshadi asserts that in countries such as Iran, "The Islamic punishments have encouraged a culture of violence against women...The fact that men receive a lighter punishment if they commit a violence against women undoubtedly encourages such violence. We saw how women could be killed with impunity during alleged adultery. Stoning to death for adultery, although technically admissible for both sexes, has also been carried out mainly against women” (Arshadi 2012). It is in countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and some non-Middle Eastern countries where the Qur’an is taken as a literal word and law, and there is constituted into actual state law. This means that certain texts from the Qur’an are used to treat women violently. For example a passage in the Qur’an states: Hadith Muslim (4:1982)  The Prophet said, “I saw Hell also. No such (abominable) sight have I ever seen as that which I saw today; and I observed that most of its inhabitants were women. They said: Messenger of Allah, on what account is it so? He said: For their ingratitude or disbelief

The rise and expansion of Islam has had a significant impact on the role and rights of women throughout history. Since its origin in the seventh century until modern times, the Muslim faith has somewhat broadened, but has mostly restricted women’s rights in numerous Islamic communities. The history of Muslim women is complex, as it involves many advances and declines in numerous locations, such as Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iran, concerning several subjects, including both civil and social rights. Thus, in general, the rights of Islamic women did not improve significantly over time, instead, conditions remained the same or became worse for women as Islam evolved and spread as a world religion.

Unfortunately, the era of men and women being equal was hasty. Briefly after Mohammed’s death Islamic society changed, so did the interpretations of the Quran to meet different circumstances. Almost simultaneously women became inferior almost being viewed as possessions and property. Having choices was no longer an option for women, whatever the man said became the law. Girls at birth could be killed by their father’s because boys carried the name of the family while girls usually were concubines, workers, or sold. Most significantly women’s roles depended largely on what the husband’s economic status was. If the husband was a farmer the wife had to help in the fields or if the husband worked in the city she had to help run the business.

Women in Islam are free and have same or equivalent rights as any other woman. As Souhelia states in her article, many women that come from Islamic upbringing are free and others are working on bringing more change into their lifestyles (Souhelia, 2006). Although the process of change does not measure up to how far Western women got, cultural differences and geographical positioning and distribution of Islam law - better known as sharia - studies have shown that education, political participation and social reforms made considerable

First wave European feminism sought to fight for women's suffrage and the liberal women's rights movements, while the second wave fought for the empowerment of women and differential rights in society, and third wave currently challenges both second wave feminism and patriarchy through a desire to embrace diversity and an idea of universal womanhood. The principal goals in emerging Ukrainian feminist movements was to reveal the conditions that women in Ukrainian society endured. The Ukrainian society held, and still holds, an emphasis on the political view of national solidarity, this was also prevalent through the feminist movements, and dominated over the solidarity of women . In the Ukraine, an exhibitionist feminist protest group

          The role of woman, her position and status in society, and her nature have been issues of debate and discussion informed by religion, tradition and culture, misogyny, feminism and - many times - downright ignorance and bigotry.