Understanding the Evolutions of Iranian Women’s Identity

Abstract

The living and social nature of women has always been questioned by traditional and modern political systems, forces and social currents, from both religious and secular sides. To explain this subject methodically, the problem of research can be made more comprehensible by formulating the concept of "Living Shi’ism", which is considered as a manifestation of collective unconsciousness and the context of political and social action. The main question of the article is what the role, weight and influence of Living Shi’ism ideas are in the processes of shaping women's political and social behaviors in contemporary Iranian history? Living Shi’ism in Iran is not entirely Shiite, but it borrowed concepts and received influences as a result of interaction and intellectual contact with intellectual currents and ideologies. Findings showed the process of political and social identification of Iranian women is influenced by a set of thinking styles and patterns based on Shiite teachings or alienation and borrowing from new intellectual currents making any socio-political status conditional on their acceptance and reform. Patterns such as modern Iranian woman, Shiite autocratic woman, left feminist woman, armed Mujahid woman, housewife with hijab, Religious Modern woman and the emergence of dual hijab /veil and woman with hijab /chaste woman are examples of empathy or women's encounter with Living Shi’ism in different periods of Iranian contemporary history. Hence social structures such as unveiling, forced hijab, the transformation of hijab from a religious to political matter, and the formation of foregoing currents are not sudden, but a gradual process of women's biological interaction with Iranian society.