Women and Politics in Iran

Abstract

In the early post‐revolutionary days the Islamic government in Iran sought to exclude women from the public domain and relegate them to the sphere of domesticity. But Iranian women refused to be marginalised. It is the contention of this article that 20 years after the inception of the post‐revolutionary Islamic government in Iran women have succeeded in overcoming the considerable barriers put before them by the government and also the considerable ideological divides that existed amongst themselves. By deconstructing the Islamic discourse, Islamist and secular women have succeeded in reconstructing an ideological framework that enables them to make political demands, framed in the language of Islam. As a result of their long struggles and single‐minded adherence to the cause of women, they have emerged as the only legitimate source of opposition to the Islamic government.