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A Feminist Generation in Iran?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Charles Kurzman
Charles Kurzman*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
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Abstract

Numerous observers have noted that a feminist generation of educated young women appears to be emerging in Iran, despite the anti-feminist discourse of the Iranian government. Evidence from three surveys conducted in 2000–2003 confirms and complicates these observations. Educated young women are significantly more likely to espouse feminist attitudes of various sorts than other Iranians, including educated young men. In addition, educated young women are significantly more likely to work outside the home, marry later, give birth later, have fewer children, and have more egalitarian marriages than other Iranian women. However, surprising proportions of older Iranians also espouse feminist attitudes, and a majority of respondents in one nationally representative sample of urban Iranians identify themselves as proponents of women's rights.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , June 2008 , pp. 297 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2008

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Footnotes

I am very grateful to the Carolina Population Center and the Mellon Foundation for funding this research; to Mohammad Hassan Khoshnevis and other officials at the Cultural Research Bureau for conducting the Iranian Family Attitudes Survey; to Farahnaz Amirkhani and Amanda Elam for research assistance; to Arang Keshavarzian, Marie Ladier-Foulani, Mansour Moaddel, and Farzaneh Roudi-Fahimi for sharing their expertise and data with me; to Kraig Beyerlein, Ted Mouw, and Cathy Zimmer for much-needed statistical assistance; and to Kian Tajbakhsh for seeing the whole project through.

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