Author's note: This paper was first presented at a panel on women at the fourth annual conference of the Center for Iranian Research and Analysis, April 4, 1986, in Washington, D.C. I would like to express my gratitude to Patricia Higgins for her careful reading of an earlier draft of this paper.Google Scholar

¹ Disagreements on policy are linked to the debate about “women's culture” and whether or not women have needs and concerns that are distinct from those of men. This debate is a difficult one because “different” has usually been translated into “unequal”. Some of these issues are discussed in the controversial study by Hewett, Sylvia Ann entitled A Lesser Life: The Myth of Women's Liberation in America (New York, 1986). Some feminists raise questions about protective labor legislation for women, such as a law passed in Iran in the 1970s prohibiting night employment and “heavy or dangerous” work for women. (Similar laws exist in many countries.)Google Scholar

² Giele, Janet Z., “Introduction: Comparative Perspectives on Women,” in Giele, Janet Z. and Smock, Ann C., eds., Women, Roles and Status in Eight Countries (New York, 1977).Google Scholar

³ While I realize that female employment does not automatically bring emancipation with it and I recognize the depth of patriarchal structures, I do believe that formal economic activities are a necessary though not sufficient condition for female autonomy and empowerment. With all due respect to the socialist-feminist critique of global manufacturing and its use (and abuse) of female labor power, it is ironic that in certain contemporary societies marked by gender segregation and the limited participation of women in the public sphere, officials (males) attempt to justify female exclusion by invoking “exploitation” in the workplace. There is certainly no dearth of such arguments in Iran, where Islamic populists have also justified hejab and the ban on cosmetics as part of their campaign against transnational corporations and the commodification of women.Google Scholar

⁴ Friedl, Erika, “State Ideology and Village Women,” in Nashat, Guity, ed., Women and Revolution in Iran (Boulder, Colo., 1983).Google Scholar

⁵ See, for example, Afkhami, Mahnaz, “Iran: a Future in the Past—The ‘Prerevolutionary’ Women's Movement,” in Morgan, Robin, ed., Sisterhood is Global (New York, 1984).Google ScholarAfshar, Haleh, “Khomeini's Teachings and Their Implications for Iranian Women,” in Tabari, Azar and Yeganeh, Nahid, eds., The Shadow of Islam (London, 1982), pp. 75–90Google Scholar, and “Women, State and Ideology in Iran,” Third World Quarterly, 7, 2 (04 1985), 256–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarAzhani, Farah, Women of Iran (London, 1983).Google ScholarFerdows, Adele, “Shariati and Khomeini on Women,” in Keddie, Nikkie and Hooglund, Eric, eds., The Iranian Revolution and the Islamic Republic (Washington, D.C., 1982)Google Scholar, and “Women and the Islamic Revolution,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 15, 2 (05 1983), 283–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarNashat, Guity, “Women in the Ideology of the Islamic Republic,” in Nashat, Guity, ed., Women and Revolution in Iran (Boulder, Colo., 1983).Google ScholarTabari, Azar, “The Enigma of the Veiled Iranian Woman,” MERIP Reports, 12, 2 (02 1982), 22–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarSanassarian, Eliz, “Political Activism and Islamic Identity in Iran,” in Iglitzen, Lynne B. and Ross, Ruth, eds., Women in the World: 1975–1985 The Women's Decade (Santa Barbara, Calif., 1986), pp. 207–24.Google Scholar A very different approach from that taken by the writers above is Higgins, Patricia, “Women in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Legal, Social and Ideological Changes,” Signs 10, 3 (Spring 1985), 477–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar She raises the question of the paucity of opposition by Iranian women to the official ideology of sex roles and suggests that it is because neither the legal changes nor the social pressures have had a major impact on the lives of the majority of the female population, who are rural and poor. This is borne out by female labor statistics. Iran's female participation rate of 9 percent in 1976 was comprised of 40 percent in agriculture, 33 percent in industry, and 16 percent in services. “Industry” largely consisted of rural manufacturing, much of it unpaid family labor, which is primarily a female category. See ILO, Yearbook of Labor Statistics, 1981, Table 2B, p. 110 for data on 1976.Google Scholar

⁶ Afshar, “Khomeini's Teachings,” pp. 84, 86.Google Scholar

⁷ Nashat, “Women in the Ideology,’ p. 195.Google Scholar

⁸ Afshar, “Women, State and Ideology,” p. 272.Google Scholar

⁹ Refer to Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, A Clarfication of Problems, Algar, Hamid, trans. (Berkeley, Calif., 1982)Google Scholar, and Motahhani, Ayatollah Morteza, Nezam-e hoquq-e zan dar Islam [the system of women's rights in Islam] (Tehran, 1974). Motahhari's critique of Western relations and his essentially functionalist arguments in favor of polygamy and temporary marriage were serialized in the popular woman's magazine, Zan-e Rouz, in the years before the Revolution.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Nuri, Ayatollah Yahya, Hoquq va hodud-e zanan dar Islam (Tehran, n.d.).Google Scholar

¹¹ Nashat, “Women in the Ideology,’ p. 200.Google Scholar

¹² Ferdows, “Shariati and Khomeini,” p. 78.Google Scholar

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴ Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, Algar, Hamid, trans. (Berkeley, Calif., 1981). Ayatollah Khomeini is not as conservative as other mujtahids on the question of women. When Ayatollah Kho'i was in Najaf, both were asked whether women could meet with men to discuss political questions. Kho'i issued a fatva saying that under no circumstances, except for Friday prayers, could men and women who were not married gather together. Khomeini, on the other hand, licensed it in his fatva.Google Scholar

¹⁵ See Sabbah, Fatna A., Woman in the Muslim Unconscious (New York, 1984).Google Scholar

¹⁶ Quoted in Nashat, “Women in the Ideology,” p. 204.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Personal communication, July 15, 1986.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Islamic Propagation Organization, The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Tehran, 1984), pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ Nashat, “Women in the Ideology,” p. 197.Google Scholar

²¹ This is in keeping with a Middle Eastern norm, where only Turkey has women judges.Google Scholar

²² Again, many countries have similar laws, presumably to ease the burdens of mothers, but in practice to legitimize and strengthen sex roles. Collective bargaining contracts often provide for an earlier retirement age for women, while labor and social legislation assign the roles of postnatal care and childrearing to women, not to men. For example, the Employment of Women Law in Israel provides for a 12-week leave for postnatal care for mothers only (excluding fathers who may wish to care for the newborn themselves) and the severance Pay Law provides that a mother may resign within nine months after giving birth and be eligible for full severance pay. See Lahav, P., “Raising the Status of Women Through Law: The Case of Israel,” in Wellesley Editorial Committee, ed., Women and National Development (Chicago, 1977).Google Scholar

²³ This unfortunate practice has a long history, and such measures have been carried Out in, for example, the United States and England following World War II. The ideology of domesticity is hardly unique to Iran or to the Middle East; however, progress toward gender equality in the Middle East is slow and encounters many obstacles. The problems and prospects of working women in the region is explored in my paper “Patterns of Female Employment in the Middle East and North Africa” (unpublished ms.).Google Scholar

²⁴ Scott, Joan, “Is Gender a Useful Category of Historical Analysis?” Paper presented at the meetings of the American Historical Association, December 27, 1985. Scott's observations are made in the context of an analysis of the relationship between gender and power and the reorganization of inequality. The question she poses—What is the relationship between laws about women and the power of the state?—would be a fruitful line of inquiry for the new and developing field of Middle East women's studies.Google Scholar

²⁵ This apparently varies across government agencies. A government employee informs me that some offices are less rigid, allowing male and female employees to sit at a lunch table together; elsewhere men and women share offices (large ones) and visit field sites together. On the other hand, many female physiotherapists, whose services are critical in a war situation, have been consigned to office jobs, as they are not supposed to come into close physical contact with male patients. (Personal communications, September 6, 1987, and September 19, 1987.)Google Scholar

²⁶ Personal communication from a former employee of the Plan and Budget Organization, March 24, 1986. There are, of course, two ways of looking at this quota system: one is that women are not to exceed the quota; the other is that they are to at least meet it. According to the above source, mining was apparently one area of study that was off limits to women. Other sources reveal that agronomy is discouraged as a field of study—a peculiar prohibition, considering the large numbers of women engaged in agricultural work.Google Scholar

²⁷ World Bank, World Development Report 1985, Table 20, p. 213.Google Scholar

²⁸ I am indebted to Ahmad Ashraf for pointing this out to me.Google Scholar

²⁹ Iran Times, April 19, 1985;Google Scholaribid., May 17, 1985.

³⁰ Iran Times, March 28, 1986, p. 5.Google Scholar

³¹ Iran Times, October 19, 1984.Google Scholar

³² Afshar, “Women, the State, and Ideology,” p. 260.Google Scholar

³³ Ibid., p. 277.

³⁴ In using these data, I am fully cognizant of the serious methodological problems in female enumeration in labor statistics. This is true not only for Iranian statistics but also for data on women throughout the Third World. The nature and scope of women's productive roles (especially outside of paid work) are not captured in standard sources such as population censuses. Women's underrepresentation in the figures is well known and the subject of many reports, studies, and proposals by international agencies. For Iran, it is particularly ludicrous to suggest, as does the Census for 1976, that only 14 percent of rural women were economically active, or that 88 percent of women over the age of 10 in Iran were said to be “inactive”; according to Shakhes-haye ejtema⊂i [Social Indicators], some 85 percent of the huge “inactive” female population of 1972 were considered housewives! (Zahra Nafez, an anthropology graduate student from Gilan, informs me that during the winter, women in her province were far more economically active than men, whose activity was mostly social and concentrated in the teahouses.) For these reasons, I prefer to deal with labor statistics pertaining to female participation in the formal/modern sector of the economy and in the urban areas, as they are more reliable and less subject to methodological problems, cultural prejudices, and the personal biases of the enumerators. In this paper I have focused on urban formal sector employment, as this is the area targeted by the Islamic ideologues in their earlier campaign against working women. They have not demanded that rural women cease their economic activities, which in any case have been quite extensive and critical for the economy and social reproduction. Women's roles in rural production (including small-scale industry) have not experienced the vicissitudes of female urban employment.Google Scholar

³⁵ Central Statistical Office, National Census of Population and Housing, 1976 (Total Country) (Tehran, 1981), Table XL;Google ScholarCentral Statistical Office, Statistical Yearbook 1984/85 (Tehran, 1985), pp. 59, 60–62.Google Scholar

³⁶ Afshar, “Women, State and Ideology” (p. 262)Google Scholar writes that only 15 percent of Iranian women are literate. In fact, the figure for 1971 was 25.5 percent, or 48 percent of urban women (see Mirani, S. Kaven, “Social and Economic Change in the Role of Women, 1956–1978,” in Nashat, Guity, ed., Women and Revolution in Iran (Boulder, Colo., 1983), p. 79. According to the 1976 census, the figure was 35 percent; for the urban areas today, 55 percent of the women are literate.Google Scholar

³⁷ 1976 Census, p. XLII;Google ScholarStatistical Yearbook 1984/85, p. 64. In 1966 the female share of urban employment was 11.7 percent, according to the 1976 Census, Table 3–1. This indicates that the share has remained fairly constant over the past 20 years.Google Scholar

³⁸ Statistical Yearbook 1984/85, p. 63.Google Scholar

³⁹ Statistical Yearbook 1984/85, pp. 62–63.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Ministry of Plan and Budget, Central Statistical Office of Iran, Statistical Yearbook 1984/85 (Tehran, 1985), p. 68.Google Scholar

⁴¹ It is interesting to note that the largest category of professional female employees in the U.S. also comprises teachers.Google Scholar

⁴² United Nations Decade for Women, Bulletin no. 12, October 1985, p. 14.Google Scholar

⁴³ Plan and Budget Organization, Statistical Yearbook 1976 (Tehran, 1977), Table 35, p. 76.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Central Statistical Office of Iran, Statistics for Large Industrial Establishments 1984/85 (Tehran, 1985), p. 263.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Statistics for Large Industrial Establishments, 1984/85, p. 301.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Statistical Yearbook 1984/85, p. 418.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Statistics for Large Industrial Establishments, 1984/85, p. 263.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ 1976 Census, p. 87.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See Lim, Linda Y. C., “Capitalism, Imperialism and Patriarchy: the Dilemma of Third World Women Workers in Multinational Factories,” in Nash, June and Ferdandez-Kelly, M. P., eds., Women, Men and the International Division of Labor (Albany, N.Y., 1983), pp. 70–91.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ International Center for Research on Women [ICRW/AID], Keeping Women Out: A Structural Analysis of Women's Employment in Developing Countries (Washington, D.C., 04 1980).Google Scholar See also Jelin, Elizabeth, “Women and the Urban Labour Market,” in Anker, Richard, Buvinic, Mayra, and Youssef, Nadia, eds., Women's Roles and Population Trends in the Third World (London, 1982).Google Scholar

⁵¹ ICRW/AID 1980, p. 92. Other rates are: 18 percent in India; 23 percent in Indonesia; 35 percent in parts of the Caribbean; 40 percent in parts of Kenya; 45 percent in the urban slum areas of Brazil and Venezuela. It is estimated that between 1960 and 1970, the proportion of female-headed households increased by one-half in Brazil and one-third in Morocco.Google Scholar

⁵² Alnasrawi, Abbas, “Economic Consequences of the Iran-Iraq War,” Third World Quarterly, 8, 3 (07 1986), 869–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵³ See, e.g., Greenwald, Maurine Weiner, Women, War and Work: The Impact of World War I on Women Workers in the United Stales (Westport, Conn., 1982).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Central Bank reports and industrial data are no longer as easily obtainable as before, suggesting that the economic situation has deteriorated to such an extent that the authorities are reluctant to release the data.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Middle East Economic Digest, Special Report on Iran (November 1983), 14.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ International Labour Organization, Women in Economic Activity: A Global Statistical Survey (1950–2000) (Geneva, 1985).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ A personal acquaintance, a young chemical engineer who left Iran in 1985, was the production manager of a major chemicals plant, overseeing 1,500 workers and six lines of production. She told me that, in addition to economic need, her educational achievement led her to seek employment. Personal communication, April 22, 1986.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ ICRW/AID 1980.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Alavi, Hamza, “State and Class under Peripheral Capitalism,” in Alavi, Hamza and Shanin, Theodor, eds., An Introduction to she Sociology of Developing Societies (New York, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁰ Oil revenues for 1986 were projected at a maximum of U.S. $9 billion. This has placed a severe strain on the economy and might explain the rumors of a long-term loan being sounded Out with Japan (which would be the first time Iran has gone on the market since the Revolution). The Islamic Republic is also negotiating a loan from the IMF. See “Roads to Damascus,” South (London, July 1986), p. 26.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Moghadam, V., “Islamic Populism and the Transitional State in Iran”. Paper presented at the 18th annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, San Francisco (November 1985).Google Scholar