Women and Work in Iran
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.00110 |
| Published date | 01 September 1997 |
| Author | Haleh Afshar |
| Date | 01 September 1997 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Women and Work in Iran
HALEH AFSHAR
University of York
The post-revolutionary government in Iran presents its approach to women as a
template for other Islamic nations to follow. By reconstructing the Koranic laws to
meet the demands of time, it argues that Muslim women have secure and eternal
independent economic and social rights. This is not so. Since the revolution Iranian
women have systematically lostout in the formal labour market. But in recent years
they have made a concerted eort to capture the Islamic discourse to contest the
legitimacy of some of the formal obstacles placedon their access to paid employment.
The question of women, notably their patterns of education and employment,
has been gaining an ever higher pro®le in Iranian politics, not least because
women have become the public face of Islami®cation1and the standard bearers
of the state's public morality. As such the government in Iran has attempted to
oer its approach to women as a template forother Islamic nations to follow. It
argues that Islam has granted a high status to women, that their independent
Islamic economic and social rights are enshrined in the holy text of the Koran,
and are therefore permanent. All Iranian women need to do is to understand the
central concept of complementarity rather than equality of gender2and all will
be well. It is worth noting that the Islamic rights espoused here are a recon-
struction of the Islamic laws, framed by the Koran, which have developed and
been interpreted and reinterpreted over the past fourteen centuries in dierent
times and dierent places. So, although the Islamic government wishes to
present its position on women's rights as that of the universalist, eternal Islam
#Political Studies Association 1997. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 CowleyRoad, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
The author would like to thank the Humanities Research Board of The British Academy for
funding the Research Leave which enabled her to do thework on this project. Thanks are similarly
due to Parvin Paidar and the PoliticalStudies' referees for their encouraging and helpful comments.
All mistakes remain the author's sole responsibility.
1For detailed discussions see amongst many others, A. Chhachhi `Forced Identities: the State,
Communalism, Fundamentalism and Womenin India' in D. Kandiyoti (ed.), Women, Islam and the
State (London, Macmillan, 1991), pp. 145±75 and H. Afshar, `Khomeini's Teachings and their
Implications for Women', in A. Tabari and N. Yeganeh (compilers), In the Shadow of Islam
(London, Zed, 1982), pp. 79±90 and H. Afshar, `Women and Work: Ideology not Adjustment at
Work in Iran', in H. Afsharand C. Dennis (eds), Women and Adjustment Policies in the Third World
(London, Macmillan, 1992), pp. 205±32.
2For detailed discussion see Z. Rahnavard, Toloueh Zaneh Mosalman (Tehran, Mahboubeh
Publication, n.d); Z. al-Ghazali, Ayam min hayati (Dar al-shurua, Cairo, n.d) quoted by
V. Homan, `An Islamic Activist: Zienab al-Ghazsli', in E. Warnok Fernea (ed.), Women and
the Family in the Middle East (Austin, University of Texas Press, 1985) and L. Ahmed, Women and
Gender in Islam (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1992) and H. Afshar, Why
Fundamentalism? Iranian Women and their Support for Islam (University of York Department of
Politics, Working paper no 2, York, 1994).
Political Studies (1997), XLV, 755±767
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