Iranian Women. The Quest for their Legal Equality since the Constitutional Revolution

Abstract

The active presence of Iranian women in the public arena and their efforts to obtain equal rights date back to the early twentieth century, when the Constitutional Revolution took place in Iran. The Constitutional Revolution of 1906 was a liberal movement aimed at creating a Parliament, limiting the Shah’s powers and enforcing constitutional laws. This article will explore the historical background of the women’s movement in Iran, in order to identify all the means utilized to demand equality in order to trace the process of demanding equality and the obstacles that Iranian women have encountered in their efforts to achieve it. It looks at the transformation of women’s rights movement in the context of socio-legal reforms in the country. The study will examine three distinct periods in the women’s rights movement, with particular focus on the post-1979 Revolution era. The Qajar Dynasty, 1796-1921, where women were systematically and socio-culturally deprived of their basic economic, social and political rights. The Pahlavi era, 1925-79, where there was a period of some positive changes for women. Finally, post-1979 Revolution and the rise of the Islamic Republic, where women lost the rights they had previously obtained. This study will attempt to demonstrate that though legal equality has yet to be obtained by Iranian women, they continue to actively pursue it. In this pursuit, they have successfully challenged the gender bias of the Iranian legal system, and it has lost its legitimacy. More pertinently, the social context has been primed to accommodate equal rights for women