Iranian Women in the Media

Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, in Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Duke University Press, 2003. In Under the Western Eyes, Chandra Talpade Mohanty criticizes homogeneous perspectives and presuppositions in some of the Western feminist texts that focus on women in the third world. More specifically, the author anchors her accounts of Western feminism in a select group of texts produced by Fran (...)

The on-camera martyrdom of Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year old philosophy student shot dead during the protests after the fraudulent presidential election in Iran in June, caught the imagination of the world. But the post-election crackdown has two other victims whose fates better capture the radical shift in the country’s political culture. One victim was the protester Taraneh Mousavi, detained, reportedly raped and murdered in prison, and her body burned and discarded. The other is Majid (...)

Iran today is a country where women are more educated than their male compatriots; more than 60% of university students are female, as are many university professors. Iranian women obtained the right to vote and become members of parliament half a century ago – earlier than women in Switzerland, who achieved this right in 1971. Since that time at least a small number have been present in Iran’s parliament. Even the present parliament, which is monopolised by hardliners, has 13 women members. (...)

Her eyes, wide and bright, filled with confusion, then fear. Desperate hands pressed against her chest to stop the blood.
And then, in front of all of our eyes, the young woman whose name we later learned was Neda, surrendered to the bullet that pierced her heart.
Her eyes have been shut forever, but the haunting, graphic amateur video released over the weekend of 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan dying on a Tehran street, will live on as an iconic symbol of brewing discontent and deep seated (...)

Like thousands of other Iranian women, Parisa took to Tehran’s streets this week, her heart brimming with hope. "Change," said the placards around her.
The young Iranian woman eyed the crowd and pondered the possibility that the rest of her life might be different from her mother’s. She could see glimmers of a future free from discrimination — and all the symbols of it, including the head-covering the government requires her to wear every day.
Women, regarded as second-class citizens under (...)

Despite divergent opinions on how to improve the condition of women in Iran, a burgeoning women’s movement has arisen in recent years to challenge the ruling conservative orthodoxy. Fatemeh Aman looks at the competing strands of opinion in Iranian feminist thinking.
Key Points
• The role of women in Iranian society has been transformed since the creation of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
• Social trends, such as a rise in the rate of female participation in education, are fostering women’s (...)

Elahe Amani reports on the Iranian women’s organisations mobilising in support of women in Afghanistan and on the power of local resistance with global support.
The new Shiite Family Law that was passed swiftly in Parliament and signed by president Karzai, sent a shock wave to all the gender equality / human rights communities all over the world. About 300 brave Afghan women gathered in front of a recently built Shiite mosque to show their opposition to a law that not only violates the (...)

WNN Iran Report - 30 years ago, Dr. Shirin Ebadi, the first female judge in Iranian history, was removed from her post when religious authorities in Iran declared that all women serving in the country as judges were “unfit†to perform their duties. She was then immediately demoted to a position as administrative clerk in the courtroom where she once presided. Dr. Ebadi was hit then by the inequities of women’s rights and inequality in Iran, but she did not let that stop her.
During a time (...)

New York post: ON Oct. 15, the Iranian Ministry of Information arrested Esha Momeni, an Iranian-American student at California State University/Northridge. To this day, she is trapped in Iran by officials who won’t let her leave.
She had gone there to make a documentary about women’s-rights activists - at least 50 of whom have been arrested in the last year, the latest three on Friday in Tehran.
Esha and the activists are charged with "endangering national security" as "agents of Western (...)

In the last decade of Mohammad Reza Shah’s rule, the legal and social situation improved dramatically for Iranian women. They gained the right to choose, and be chosen. They gained the right to judge. Family law was amended, and family courts were established. As a result, men could no longer divorce their wives without having a court ruling in their favor. Women’s access to seek divorce increased. The child custody law was changed so the court maintained custody and would grant it to the (...)