Women and Politics in Iran

Why were urban women veiled in the early 1900s, unveiled from 1936 to 1979, and reveiled after the 1979 revolution? This question forms the basis of Hamideh Sedghi's original and unprecedented contribution to politics and Middle Eastern studies. Using primary and secondary sources, Sedghi offers new knowledge on women's agency in relation to state power. In this rigorous analysis she places contention over women at the centre of the political struggle between secular and religious forces and demonstrates that control over women's identities, sexuality, and labor has been central to the consolidation of state power. Sedghi links politics and culture with economics to present an integrated analysis of the private and public lives of different classes of women and their modes of resistance to state power.

ISBN 052183581X   Pages 360 ISBN13 9780521835817 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Cambridge University Press   Weight (grammes) 700 Imprint Cambridge University Press   Published in Cambridge Format Hardback   Height (mm) 228 Publication date 09 Jul 2007   Width (mm) 152 Library of Congress HQ1735.2 .S43 2007   Spine width (mm) 24 DEWEY 305.420955   Academic level Tertiary education, Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC22

Part I. Women in Early Twentieth Century Iran: 1. The Qajar dynasty, patriarchal households, and women; Part II. Women in the Kingdom of the Peacock Throne: 2. The Pahlavi dynasty as a centralizing patriarchy; 3. Economic development and the gender division of labor; 4. The state and gender: repression, reform, and family legislation; 5. Gender and the state; Part III. Women in the Islamic Republic: 6. The 1979 revolution and the restructuring of patriarchy; 7. The gender division of labor; 8. Politics and women's resistance.

'A very illuminating historical account of the ways in which gender has played a central role in Iranian politics. The processes of veiling, unveiling and reveiling provide a rich background around which much more is analyzed -from the efforts to control women's sexuality, to factors affecting women's labor force participation, to the active and important role played by women's agency at many levels. Sedghi has accumulated an enormous amount of information that documents Iran's development path and the historical, political, and cultural contexts that have shaped women's lives, gender dynamics and gender politics throughout the twentieth century and up to the present. The book is likely to become a key text for anyone interested not only in Iran and the Muslim world, but also in the wider issues of gender and development and of feminist politics.' Lourdes Beneria, Cornell University 'It is impossible to imagine more timely circumstances for the publication of Hamideh Sedghi's groundbreaking scholarship in the field of Iranian women's studies. Predicated on an illustrious and unparalleled record of solid scholarship, Hamideh Sedghi's Women and Politics in Iran: Veiling, Unveiling, and Reveiling is a comprehensive study of the vicissitude of the status of women in modern Iran from the Qajar period in the nineteenth century to the Islamic Republic in the twenty-first century. At a time that a lucrative and obscene genre of women's memoire has hijacked and abused the legitimate cause of Iranian women's struggles for an illegitimate justification of global warmongering, Hamideh Sedghi's impeccable scholarship, judicious insights, and caring intellect sets the record straight and paves the way for a renewed commitment to the just and noble cause of women's liberation movements across the globe. One reads page after page of Hamideh Sedghi's learned book with a sigh of relief that against the grain of a treacherous time, the record and defense of women's struggles for freedom, justice, and equality are still in very capable and caring hands.' Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University 'Highlighting the centrality of gender as a crucial category for understanding politics in Iran deftly, Sedghi's ground breaking book achieves multiple tasks: that in post-revolutionary Iran women are active agents of their own destiny and that they engage purposefully with the state, challenging its gender policies. She weaves in a theoretically and empirically sound framework for understanding the mutually constitutive relationship between the state's desire to controlling women's labor and sexuality in order to forge legitimacy and consolidate power, and women's resistance to articulate their own drives and objectives. Sedghi sheds light on the changing structure and function of veiling for women by taking a historical and comparative perspective within Iran, and thus challenging the Orientalist myth of oppressed and victimized women in the Muslim world. This book is a must read for every interested person in women and politics in Iran, in the Middle East and in the Muslim world.' Shahla Haeri, Boston University 'Hamideh Sedghi provides a detailed, thorough investigation of gender and politics dynamics in Iran throughout the last three political periods - Qajar, Pahlavi, and Islamic Republic. Sedghi persuasively demonstrates that for each regime, women and control over defining women and their sexuality were significant in consolidating and presenting political power and identity. Particularly during the Pahlavi period and the Islamic Republic of Iran, women, their dress, and their place in society became a main focus in the struggle over power between the clergy and secularizing powers. Sedghi points out, however that the ability of these two governments to use women to their own ends has been limited and compromised by women's resistance and agency - which have also affected political developments and the evolving character of Iranian society.' Mary Elaine

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