Iranian women’s rights movement deadlocked

Shahrzadnews: While everyone is talking about the Arab Spring, a prominent Iranian rights activist claims that the country’s women’s movement has been forced into inactivity and deadlock.

Nooshin Ahmadi Khorasani was born in 1970. She obtained a doctorate in women’s studies from Tehran University and has written and translated several books about Iranian women’s affairs. Her latest volume The Women’s Movement Spring relates the experiences, good and bad, of many of the women who are campaigning for freedom and equality in Iran.

It is also a history of the struggle of women from every walk of Iranian society. In particular Ahmadi reports her first-hand experience of the One Million Signatures Campaign, finding new words to describe the behind-the-scenes activities of the movement and its players.

The book is in six chapters, divided into two sections. The first describes the birth and gradual maturation of the Iranian women’s movement after the 1979 revolution, while the second deals with the expansion of the movement between 1994 and 2000. The four chapters of this section are:

the re-emergence of the women’s movement
the growth of women’s groups
the growth of feminist writing in books and the media
the presence of women’s rights’ activists in state bodies
Introducing her section on the One Million Signatures Campaign, Nooshin Ahmadi writes: “The activities, decisions and beliefs of women involved in a rights’ movement are developed to some extent as they go along, but later they will become part of history. Consequently all of us who are involved in this eventful period have a duty to record our insights and experiences, so that future historians have something to base their work on.”

Nooshin Ahmadi believes that the Iranian women’s movement has stalled and been forced into retreat (‘ a forced autumn’ in her words), but her book would seem to be an attempt to reinvigorate and revive it. “The violent events that followed the 2009 presidential elections led to the disintegration of many of the country’s civil institutions, including those that had been formed to defend women’s rights. International sanctions, subsidy reforms, economic pressure, diplomatic isolation, the unprecedented devaluation of national currency, the closure of many factories and the throttling of oil revenue have combined to throw us into a completely new phase of existence. Our women’s rights’ movement had its spring in the 1990s and 2000s, and is now entering its autumn.

Throughout her book the writer emphasises the solidarity of Iranian women involved in the struggle, showing how common objectives and co-operation provide a wealth of experience to help them take things further. She says the movement will be successful if it remains united and follows the wishes of the majority.