Discrimination is Not Bad in Everything

Rooz Online

The recent remarks by Iran’s leader ayatollah Khamenei on women was a reflection of the views of the conservative and traditional clerics in the Islamic republic. “If we want to have a sound and specific view regarding women, the first condition is that we must completely drain our mind from the debate that Westerners have about work, management, and gender equality. One of the biggest errors in Western thought about women is this notion of ‘gender equality,’” he broadcast.

“The issue of women’s work is not the main question. We of course are not against women working. I myself have no opposition to them working or being in management so long as these are not in conflict with the core issues. If there is conflict between them, then the core issues are supreme,” he continued, meaning work takes a secondary position.

This is not the first time Khamenei has defended discrimination of against women. Last year too he made similar remarks to a group of women when he said, “To masculinize women means to push jobs that conform more with men’s physical, mental and psychic core towards women and then turning this into a pride and a benefit for women. We became passive about this. We missed it because willingly or not we accepted this narrative.”

But this view of women is not limited to ayatollah Khamenei. The dominant view in the Islamic republic regarding women has been a traditional one. It must not be forgotten that the imposition of hijab on women during the first years of the revolution in 1979 and the follow up and complete imposition in later years has today become an ideological principle of the regime so that any opposition to it is met with violence and oppressive measures.

It is this outlook that created the discriminatory policies in university admission policies and pressure to prevent women from working increased. Since the new policies of the leader of the Islamic regime regarding population growth will also not be advanced without the creation of obstacles for women’s social life, more barriers are expected to be created for women wanting to enter the workforce.

It was only a few years ago that ultra conservative ayatollah Ahmad Janati from the Guardians Council openly expressed concerns about women’s education at a Friday congregational prayer at Tehran University. “Our misfortune is the problem that has been created because women have become students in that that when someone goes to propose marriage to a woman perhaps the first thing that is asked of her is how much education she has. One is really shocked at this,” he said.

A few days ago another cleric, ayatollah Jaafar Sobhani, from Qom made similar remarks when he said, “It is not necessary that all women should go to the university. This creates expectations for jobs. Attachment to the family and being a housewife are among the greatest services of women.”

Yesterday, Tasnim news agency affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards published a report on the “Impact of Employment of Women on Society” and presented a list of what it asserts are the negative impacts of such employment. Identity change, growing upbringing issues, changing the model of women’s social participation, rise in the age of marriage, reduction in population growth, and a rise in social ills are among those listed. A part of the feature reads, “By accepting jobs, women find themselves in new social situations and find themselves in more difficult situations to get married. A working woman will not marry a man with a job that is socially lower than hers. On the other hand, acquiring economic support, which is the reason women get married, is actually lower with women who have permanent jobs and enjoy retirement.”

“The desire to work has resulted in an identity change in women. Because of the pressures that working women have in balancing multiple roles, which in most cases are against being a housewife, these women are growingly opposing the division of work on gender lines and interpret equality to mean equality of roles. At the same time, acquiring independent means of livelihood has given women the spirit of independence and individuality, and the strengthening of these,” the report continued.

But the concerns of the traditional quarters of Iranian society goes beyond women’s education and jobs. They present different expectations and desires from women.

Recently, Mohammad-Reza Naghdi, the head of paramilitary Basij publicly said, “Bad hijab, weakening of the family, drop in population growth and growing divorce rates are the effects of the presence of satellite dishes and TV in homes. If women are convinced that this is an unsuitable media, the problems can be solved easily. Women can resolve the satellite TV issue very easily. Women play a key role in the implementation of resistance economy. They also have a central role in determining a consumption oriented or productive striving family.”

Women and their rapidly changing demands have become a crisis in the Islamic republic. This is what ayatollah Sadegh Larijani had on his mind when he recently said, Legal issues and the differences between men and women must be viewed as interconnected issues in order to clearly see that women’s rights are not violated in Islam and the Islamic republic.”

As time passes, international and domestic pressure on the Islamic republic to accept women’s rights is on the rise. But despite the passage of 35 years since the hijab was imposed on Iranian women and the continued pressures throughout this period to break the opposition to the hijab and impose the dual discrimination against women, the issue continues to be a national problem for the traditionalists.

Ayatollah Nouri Hamedani, a cleric from Ghom, recently said, “One of the important cultural problems of the country is the hijab which is unfortunately not paid the attention it deserves. The government needs to start implementing the hijab issues from its own offices and then expand it into society and ultimately institutionalizing it.”

Concern about women’s views and behavior has now extended into kindergartens. This was evident a few days ago when Minoo Aslani, the head of women’s Jihad said, “Dancing and the accepting relations between girls and boys as normal which is taking place in the kindergartens of the country these days is different from the Islamic lifestyle. The personality of our children is shaped in these very kindergartens. Therefore, teaching them Western cultural traits instills a pro-Western personality in them.”