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The Iranian Left and the “Woman Question” in the Revolution of 1978–79

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Hammed Shahidian
Hammed Shahidian
Affiliation:
teaches at the Sociology'Anthropology Program at Sangamon State University, Springfield, 1ll. 62794, U.S.A.
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Extract

The relationship between feminism and socialism in both the theoretical and practical realms has been marked with difficulty and “unhappiness.” Feminists have criticized leftists for their lack of attention to sexual domination, and many socialists, in turn, have looked at women's liberation movements as a bourgeois deviation or, worse yet, a conspiracy against the workers' struggle. In 19th-century social democratic movements in Europe, conflicts between feminist-socialist advocates of women's rights such as Clara Zetkin and “proletarian anti-feminism” among workers and communists were constant. Eventually, guided by the theoretical insights of a number of socialist leaders such as Bebel, Engels, and Zetkin, socialist parties of the First and Second Internationals came to realize that the cause of the women's movement was just and to accept autonomous women's organizations. The Third International, or Comintern, although it initially claimed to liberate women “not only on paper, but in reality, in actual fact,” treated the inequality of women as a secondary consideration. Focusing on production and labor conflict, the Comintern paid attention only to women's exploitation by capital to the extent that “by the end of the 1920s, any special emphasis on women's social subordination in communist propaganda or campaigning came to be regarded as a capitulation to bourgeois feminism.” Leftist women activists lost their organizational autonomy and had to work under the supervision of their national communist party.

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Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , May 1994 , pp. 223 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

NOTES

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3 This was the promise of the Theses on the Communist Women's Movement formulated by the First Communist Women's Conference, held in June 1920 in Moscow; quoted in Elizabeth Waters, “In the Shadow of the Comintern: The Communist Women's Movement, 1920–1943,” in Promissory Notes: Women in the Transition to Socialism, ed. Kruks, Sonia, Rapp, Rayna, and Young, Marilyn B. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1989), 30Google Scholar.

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11 On Sultanzādah's views on the woman's question, see Sultanzādah, , “Mawqeʿeiyat-i Zan-i Irāni” (The Status of the Iranian Woman), in Historical Documents: The Workers', Social-Democratic, and Communist Movement in Iran, ed. Chacqueri, Cosro, with introduction (Tehran: Elm Publications, n.d.), 4:105–6Google Scholar. For further information on Sultanzādah, see Chacqueri, Cosroe, “Sultanzade: The Forgotten Revolutionary Theoretician of Iran, A Biographical Sketch,” Iranian Studies 17, 2–3 (1984): 215–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Arani's notion of sexual inequality, see Arāni, Taqī, “Zan va-Māteryalizm” (Woman and Materialism), Dunyā 6 (06–07 1934)Google Scholar. Reprinted in Arani, , Navashtahʾhā-yi ʿIlml, Falsafi va-Ijtimāʿt (Scientific, Philosophical, and Sociological Writings). Historical Documents: The Workers', Social-Democratic, and Communist Movement in Iran, ed. Chacqueri, Cosro, with introduction (Tehran: Antidote Publications, 1983), 15:41Google Scholar.

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16 See Suratgar, Olive, I Sing in the Wilderness: An Intimate Account of Persia and the Persians (London: Edward Stanford, 1951), 131Google Scholar.

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18 1976 Census on Population and Housing, xl.

19 Mirani, Kaveh, “Social and Economic Change in the Role of Women, 1956–1978,” in Women and Revolution in Iran, 78Google Scholar.

20 See ʿArāqī, ʿIzzatullāh, Ḥūqūq-i Kār (Labor Law) (Tehran: National University Press, 1977), 1:147, 179,222–26Google Scholar.

21 Iran Almanac (1975), 420Google Scholar.

22 The Organization of Iranian People's Fida^i Guerrillas (hereafter referred to as OIPFG), Kar 2(15 March 1979): 1.

23 OIPFG, “Barrasī-i Kūtāhi az Mubarezāt-i Dīmūkrātīk-i Dow Sāleh-y Zanān” (A Brief Review of the Two Years of Women's Democratic Struggle), Kār (8 March 1979), special issue on International Women's Day. English translation from: “A Brief Assessment of the Iranian Women's Democratic Struggles,” Women & Struggle in Iran 1 (1982): 1Google Scholar, a publication of the Women's Commission of the Iranian Student Association in the U.S. (hereafter referred to as ISA-US), Supporters of OIPFG.

24 See “The Bill of Retribution,” in In the Shadow of Islam, 94–97Google Scholar. For an Islamic interpretation of sexual equality in the Bill of Retribution, see Maḥmūdī, ʿAbbāsali, Naẓariya-i Jadīd Darbāreh-i Barābarī- i Zan va-Mard dar Qiṣāṣ (A New theory Concerning the Equality of Women and Men in the Qisas) (Tehran: Intesharat-i Bicsat, 1986)Google Scholar.

25 Examples include the following: on Iranian Arab women, see Azādī-i, Razmandegān-iKārgar, Ṭabaqa-i (Fighters of the Liberation of the Working Class), Guzārishi az Awżāʿi Iqtiṣādī—Siyāsī va Farhangī-i Khalq-i ʿArab-i Īrān (A Report on the Politico-Economic and Cultural Conditions of the Arabs of Iran) (Razmandegān, n.d.), 14–17;Google Scholar on Turcoman women, see OIPFG, “Zandagī va-Mubārazāt-i Zanān-i Turkaman Sahrā” (The Life and Struggles of Turcoman Sahra Women), Kār (18 02 1979)Google Scholar special issue on Turcoman Sahra; and on Baluchi women, see Supporters of OIPFG—Sistan, and Baluchistan, , Zan-i Balūch (Baluchi Woman) (1984)Google Scholar.

26 Fīrūz, Maryam in an interview with Tudeh Youth, supplement of Mardum 1, 7 (05 1981)Google Scholar. Quoted in In the Shadow of Islam, 139Google Scholar.

27 Socialist Worker, March 1981. Quoted in Ibid., 133.

28 See Halliday, Fred, Iran: Dictatorship and Development (London: Pelican Books, 1979), 211–48Google Scholar.

29 For details about guerrillas, see Abrahamian, , Iran between Two Revolutions, 480Google Scholar.

30 For details, see Mirsepassi-Ashtiani, Ali and Moghadam, Valentine M., “The Left and Political Islam in Iran: A Retrospect and Prospect,” Radical History Review 51 (1991): 27–62Google Scholar.

31 A recent article in Persian sketches these tensions; see Rawja, H. S., “Fimīnīsm va-Susyālīsm az ʿAhd-i Rowshangarī tā Jang-i Jahānī-i Avval” (Feminism and Socialism from the Enlightenment to World War I), Porssa: A Persian Journal of Theoretical Research 2 (1989): 12–75Google Scholar.

32 Molyneux, Maxine, “Mobilization Without Emancipation? Women's Interests, the State, and Revolution in Nicaragua,” Feminist Studies 11,2 (1985): 236Google Scholar.

33 Mohsen, Aisha, a member of the General Union of Yemeni Women in an interview with Maxine Molyneux, in “Women and Revolution in the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen,” Feminist Review 1 (1979): 17Google Scholar.

34 See Molyneux, Maxine, “Legal Reform and Socialist Revolution in Democratic Yemen: Women and the Family,” International Journal of the Sociology of Law 13 (1985): 147–72Google Scholar.

35 The Confederation of Iranian Students (National Union) (hereafter referred to as CIS-NU), Nāmeh-ye Pārsā, Vīzhah-e 8 Mars, Rūz-i Beynulmilalī Zanān (Nāmeh-ye Pārsī, Special Issue for March 8th, International Women's Day), 15, 1 (n.d.): 27. This is the special women's issue of the Nāmeh-ye Pārsī, a quarterly published by the CIS-NU. Although produced outside of Iran, the account can be used as a document from within the Iranian leftist movement. First, National Unity was a branch of the confederation that actively supported the guerrilla movement. In that sense, the Nāmeh is the theoretical declaration of a movement that drastically affected the opposition movement. Second, the arguments made by the anonymous authors in the Nāmeh are based on several assumptions that are by and large accepted by the Iranian left.

36 Ibid., 28, 47, 48.

37 Cornforth, Maurice, Historical Materialism (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 105Google Scholar.

38 For an overview, see Worsley, Peter, The Three Worlds: Culture and World Development (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), esp. 41–60;Google ScholarGrossberg, Lawrence and Nelson, Cary, “Introduction: The Territory of Marxism,” in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Grossberg, L. and Nelson, C. (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 1–13Google Scholar.

39 See Jay, Martin, Marxism and Totality (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 81–127Google Scholar.

40 See Mouffe, Chantal, “Hegemony and Ideology in Gramsci,” in Gramsci and Marxist Theory, ed. Mouffe, C. (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), 168–204Google Scholar.

41 Williams, Raymond, “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory,” in Problems in Materialism and Culture (London: Verso, 1980), 35Google Scholar.

42 Ibid., 40.

43 Ibid., 43.

44 This analysis is developed in the works of Laclau and Mouffe; see Laclau, Ernesto and Mouffe, Chantal, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 1987)Google Scholar.

45 Iran Almanac (1973), 415Google Scholar.

46 Safāʾī-Farāhānī, ʿAli-Akbar, Ānchih Yek Inqilābī Bāyad Bedānad (What a Revolutionary Should Know) (written and originally published in 1971 by OIPFG) (Tehran: Nabard Publication, n.d.), 54Google Scholar.

47 The most developed analysis of “cultural work” in the writings of leftist intellectuals is in the area of engage art; see Behrangi, Samad, “Poetry and Society,” in Critical Perspectives on Modern Persian Literature, ed. Ricks, Thomas M. (Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1984);Google Scholarulisurkhi, Khusraw, Siyāsat-i Shiʿr, Siyāsat-i Hunar (The Politics of Poetry, the Politics of Art) (written and originally published in 1971) (n.p., n.d.);Google ScholarSulṭānpūr, Saʿīd, Nawʿi az Honor, Nawʿi az Andīshah (One Kind of Art, One Kind of Thought) (originally written in the early 1970s) (n.p., n.d.)Google Scholar.

48 For a review of the definitions and impact of cultural imperialism, see Roberts, Ron and Kloss, Robert Marsh, Social Movements between the Balcony and the Barricade (St. Louis, Mo.: C. V. Mosby, 1974), 77–98Google Scholar.

49 On Behrangi, Gulisurkhi and Sultanpur, see n. 47. On Hezarkhani, , see his introduction to the collection of translated articles on colonialism and culture, Nizhādparastī va-Farhang (Racism and Culture) (Tehran: Zaman, 1973), 5–12;Google Scholaridem, “Yāddāshtʾhā-yi Darbārah-yi Khuṣūṣiyyāt-i Yek Farhang-i Dallāl” (Notes on the Characteristics of a Go-Between Culture), in Jung-i Saḥar (Tehran: n.p., 1977)Google Scholar.

50 OIPFG, “Compulsory Veiling under the Pretext of Fighting Imperialist Culture,” in In the Shadow of Islam, 129Google Scholar. Originally published in Kār, 67.

51 For a comparison of leftist and religious approaches to the cultural imperialism, see Hanson, Brad, “The ‘Westoxication’ of Iran: Depictions and Reaction of Behrangi, Al-e Ahmad and Shariati,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 15, 1 (1983): 1–23Google Scholar.

52 Safāʾi-Farāhānī, , What a Revolutionary Should Know, 41Google Scholar.

53 Nāṭiq, Humā, Az Māst Kih Bar Māst (Nobody Else to Blame but Ourselves) (Tehran: Agah Publications, 1975)Google Scholar.

54 Muʾminī, Muḥammad Bāqir, Dard-i Ahl-i Qalam (Writers' Grievance) (n.p., 1977), 62–66;Google Scholar“Adabiyyāt-i Mashrūṭa” (The Literature of the Constitutional Movement), in Īrān dar Āstānah-i Inqilāb-i Mashrūṭiyyat va Adabiyyāt-i Mashrūṭah (Iran on the Eve of the Constitutional Revolution and the Literature of the Constitutional Movement) (Tehran: Shabahang Publications, 1978), 179–83Google Scholar.

55 See Pūyān, Amīr Parvīz, “Khashmgīn az Imperiālīsm, Tarsān az Inqilāb” (Outraged against Imperialism, Fearful of Revolution), published posthumously in Pīshgām 3 (1979): 11–20;Google ScholarMuʾminī, Ḥamīd, “Nāmah-i Ḥamīd Muʾminī bih Bāqir Muʾmini” (Hamid Muʾmini's Letter to Baqir Muʾmini), Faṣli dar Golesorkh 1 (1979): 53–54Google Scholar.

56 Narāqi, Iḥsān and Khoi, Ismāʿīl, Āzādī, Haqq va-ʿIdālat (Freedom, Rights and Justice) (Tehran: Javidan, 1977)Google Scholar.

57 Az, “The Women's Struggle in Iran,” Monthly Review 32, 10 (1981): 25Google Scholar.

58 Ibid., 26.

59 I have discussed this issue elsewhere; see Shahidian, Hammed, “National and International Aspects of Feminist Movements: The Example of the Iranian Revolution of 1978–79,” Critique 2 (1993): 48–49Google Scholar.

60 Mattelart, Michele, “Chile: The Feminine Side of the Coup or When Bourgeois Women Take to the Streets,” NACLA Report on Latin America and the Empire 9 (1975): 14–25;CrossRefGoogle Scholar also published as “Chile: The Feminine Version of the Coup d'Etat,” in Sex and Class in Latin America, ed. Nash, June and Safa, Helen Icken (New York: Praeger, 1976)Google Scholar.

61 Chinchilla, , “Mobilization of Women,” 89Google Scholar.

62 Mattelart, , “Chile: The Feminine Version of the Coup d'Etat,” 289Google Scholar.

63 People's FidaDiyyin (Majority), “Women's Rights and Islamic Hejab,” in In the Shadow of Islam, 136Google Scholar.

64 See Azari, Farah, “Sexuality and Women's Oppression in Iran,” in Women of Iran, 90–156Google Scholar.

65 Hobsbawm, E. J., “Revolution Is Puritan,” in The New Eroticism: Theories, Vogues and Canons, ed. Nobile, Philip (New York: Random House, 1970), 40Google Scholar.

66 Byanyima, W. Karagwa, “Women in Political Struggle in Uganda,” in Women Transforming Politics: Worldwide Strategies for Empowerment, ed. Bystydzienski, Jill M. (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992), 129–42Google Scholar.

67 Az, “The Women's Struggle in Iran,” 25Google Scholar.

68 Ong, Aihwa, Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), 179–93Google Scholar.

69 CIS-NU, Nāmeh, 5–6Google Scholar.

70 Jazanī, Bizhan, 19 Bahman-i Tīʾūrīk (19 Bahman: Theoretical) 6 (n.d.): 188Google Scholar.

71 “Introduction,” Khānivādeh dar Jāmiʿa-i Susyālistī (The Family in Socialist Society) (rep. ISA-US, Supporters of OIPFG, n.d.), 2Google Scholar.

72 ʿIshq, Izdivāj va-Khānivādeh az Dīdgāh-i Marxīsm-Lenīnīsm (Love, Marriage and the Family from the Marxist-Leninist Point of View), comp. Supporters of Peykar (1979), 3Google Scholar.

73 Ibid., 4. For Engels's classification and discussion, see Engels, Frederick, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and State, in Marx and Engels, Selected Works in Three Volumes (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970), 3:209–55Google Scholar.

74 Supporters of Peykar, , Love, Marriage and the Family, 5Google Scholar.

75 Tudeh, Party of Iran, “Ḥuqūq-i Zan az Dīdgāh-i Mārx va Engels” (Women's Rights according to Marx and Engels), supplement to Nāmeh-ye Mardum (first year), 8, 10 (9 08 1984): 3Google Scholar.

76 For detail, see Landes, Joan B., “Marxism and the ‘Woman Question’,” in Promissory Notes, 15–28Google Scholar.

77 There is another reason for the left's style of dress: as one activist commented, “similar to the Hippis in the West, we were rebelling against the dominant culture, against our parents' lifestyle, againstthe capitalist system. So in that respect we were influenced by the progressive movement of the sixties” (telephone interview, 06 1993)Google Scholar.

78 Qāżinūr, Qodsī, “Beh-Umīd-i Rūzi kih Rūz-i Zan, Ḥuqūq-i Zan va-Masʾala-i Zan Nabāshad” (May a Day Come in which the Women's Day, the Women's Rights, and the Woman Question No Longer Exist), Kayhān, 12 03 1979, 6Google Scholar.

79 For further discussion, see Sabbah, Fatna A., Woman in the Muslim Unconscious (New York: Pergamon Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Mernissi, Fatima, Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publication, 1992), esp. chap. 7Google Scholar.

80 Shariati, Ali, Takyah bih Maz'hab (Reliance on Religion) (Tehran: Abuzar, 1977), 23Google Scholar.

81 OIPFG, “Azādy-e Zanān az Azādy-e Jāmiʿa Judā Nīst” (“Women's Emancipation Is Not Separate from the Emancipation of Society”), Kār 2 (15 03 1979): 6Google Scholar.

82 CIS(NU), Nāmeh, 100–101Google Scholar.

83 OIPFG, (“Women's Emancipation Is Not Separate from the Emancipation Society”) Kār (15 03 1979): 6Google Scholar.

84 For further information on this subject, see Hammed Shahidian, “Women and Clandestine Politics in Iran” (forthcoming).

85 Eisen, Arlene, Women and Revolution in Viet Nam (London: Zed Books, 1984), 248Google Scholar.

86 Najjar, Orayb Aref, “Between Nationalism and Feminism: The Palestinian Answer,” in Women Transforming Politics, 157Google Scholar.

87 Peteet, Julie, “Women and the Palestinian Movement: No Going Back?” Middle East Report 138 (1986): 23Google Scholar.

88 A good example is the collected essays and sketches of Oskooʾi, Marziyya Aḥmadī, Khāṭirāt-i Yek Rafiq: Yāddāshtʾ;hā-yi Cherīk-i Fadāʾī-i Khalq (Memoirs of a Comrade: Notes of a Peopleʾs Fidaʾi Guerrilla) (OIPFG, n.d.)Google Scholar.

89 OIPFG, “Taḥlīli az Iʾtiṣāb-i Kārgarān-i Kārkhānajāt-i Kafsh-i Millī” (An Analysis of the Melly Shoe Factory Workers' Strike), Nabard-i Khalq 3 (1974): 28–35Google Scholar.

90 OIPFG, “Payām-i Sāzimān-i Cherīkʾhā-ye Fadāʾī-ye Khalq-i Īrān bih Munāsebat-i Hifdahum-i Isfand, Rūz-i Jahānī-i Zan” (The Message of OIPFG on the Occasion of Esfand Seventeenth [March Eighth], the International Women's Day), Iʾlāmiyyaʾhā va-Bayāniyyaʾhā-ye Sāzimān-i Charīk'ha-ye Fadāʾī-i Khalq-i Irān dar Sāl-i 1357 (The Leaflets and Statements of OIPFG in 1357) (OIPFG, 1979), 235Google Scholar.

91 For an analysis of similar concerns between reformist and revolutionary approaches to women's rights, see Vogel, Lise, Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1983), 101–103Google Scholar.

92 See Moghadam, “Socialism or Anti-imperialism?”

93 A similar orientation can be observed in the evaluation of the Iranian revolution by the Communist party of the Soviet Union; see Agaev, S. L., “The Zigzag Path of the Iranian Revolution,” Soviet Sociology 25, 2 (1988): 3–30Google Scholar.

94 See Democratic Organization of Iranian Women (hereafter referred to as DOIW), Zan dar Jāmiʾa-i Irān (Woman in the Iranian Society) (Britain, 1980), 12Google Scholar.

95 DOIW in UK, My Struggle Is My Work (n.p., 1982), 6Google Scholar.

96 Ibid., 7–8.

97 DOIW, Woman in the Iranian Society, 13; see also “Naqsh-i Zan dar Inqilāb” (Women's Role in the Revolution), in DOIW, Asāsnāmeh va-Barnameh (Bylaws and Program) (n.p., n.d.), 15.

98 DOIW, Bylaws and Program, 9.

99 Ibid., 9–10.

100 Ibid., 12.

101 DOIW, Women's Oppression in Iran (n.p., 1984), 3Google Scholar.

102 Peykar, “Pīrāmūn-i Junbesh-i Zanān-i Zaḥmatkesh” (Concerning the Movement of the Toiling Women), part 2, Paykār 94 (16 February 1981): 19Google Scholar.

103 Waters, “In the Shadow of the Comintern,” 40.

104 Moghissi, Haideh wrote: “Very often, when [leftists] write about the sufferings of women under Islamic rule, women are referred to as ‘our mothers,’ ‘our wives’ or ‘our daughters’ and not as women,” from “Women in the Resistance Movement in Iran,” in Women in the Middle East: Perceptions, Realities and Struggles for Liberation, ed. Haleh Afshar (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993), 163Google Scholar. Moghissi does not specify to which leftist organization she is referring, nor does she cite a source for her claim. I have not come across any example of addressing women other than as “women,” “militant women,” or “toiling women” in my review of the literature.

105 Peykar, “Concerning the Movement of the Toiling Women,” part 3, Paykar 95 (23 02 1981): 23Google Scholar.

106 Ibid., 24.

107 Ibid..

108 See Najjar, “Between Nationalism and Feminism,” 145–48; and Peteet, “Women and the Palestinian Movement,” 23–24.

109 See Sarti, Cynthia, “The Panorama of Feminism in Brazil,” New Left Review 173 (1989): 75–90Google Scholar.

110 Peykar, “Concerning the Movement of the Toiling Women,” part 3. Using long jargon-filled sentences is a stylistic trait of the Iranian left. Statements should say everything and cover all bases at all times. The organization should secure itself against every conceivable attack. A primary purpose of writing, therefore, becomes to state one's position and to inform others of their “deviations.”

111 The Comintern suggested the same relationship between women's organizations and the party; see Waters, “In the Shadow of the Comintern,” esp. 46–50.

112 Stalin, J. V., Concerning Questions of Leninism. Vol. 8, Works (Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1954), 34Google Scholar.

113 Sonia Kruks and Ben Wisner, “Ambiguous Transformations: Women, Politics, and Production in Mozambique,” in Promissory Notes, 148–71; Amrita Basu, “Democratic Centralism in the Home and the World: Bengali Women and the Communist Movement,” in Ibid., 215–32.

114 OIPFG, “A Brief Review of the Two Years of Women's Democratic Struggle,” 1.

115 Ibid.,5.

116 See Moghissi, “Women in the Resistance Movement in Iran,” 165–68.

117 See National Union of Women, “Aims and Objective,” in In the Shadow of Islam, 204.

118 Ibid., 205.

119 Ibid., 206.

120 DuBois, Ellen Carol, “Women Suffrage and the Left: An International Socialist-Feminist Perspective,” New Left Review 186 (1991): 30Google Scholar.

121 The information presented here is based on my interviews with Fidaʾi women.

122 Supporters of OIPFG–Sistan and Baluchistan, “Gīrāmī Bād Rūz-i Jahānī-i Zan” (Hail to the International Women's Day), Bāmi Istār 28 (March 1984); “Rūz-i Zan, Sālrūz-i Junbesh-i Zanān-i Zaḥmatkesh-i Jahān Gīrāmī Bād” (Commemorate Women's Day, the Anniversary of the Movement of Toiling Women), Bāmi Istār 42, 11 03 1985Google Scholar.

123 Supports of OIPFG–Sistan and Baluchistan, Baluchi Woman, 14.