Islamic Fundamentalism in Iran - Principle-ists and Women Issues

Principle-ists and Women Issues

Principle-ists, irrespective of their genders, support a very strict life style for women in Iran. The women in the seventh Iranian parliament were against the bill on Iran joining the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which the female reformists in the sixth parliament had fought for vigorously. The women in the seventh parliament have exhibited conservative, right wing tendencies, setting them apart from their counterparts in the preceding parliament. In July 2007, Ali Khamenei criticized Iranian women's rights activists and the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW): "In our country ... some activist women, and some men, have been trying to play with Islamic rules in order to match international conventions related to women," Khamenei said. "This is wrong." However he is positive on reinterpreting Islamic law in a way that it is more favorable for women – but not by following Western conventions. Khamenei made these comments two days after an Iranian women's right activist Delaram Ali was sentenced to 34 months of jail and 10 lashes by Iran's judiciary. Iranian judiciary works under the responsibility of the Supreme Leader and is independent from the government.

Principle-ists in Iran forced Islamic dress on Iranian women soon after the revolution of 1979. Since then Iranian police, governed under the responsibility of the Supreme Leader, have continuously attacked women who do not adhere to the dress code. Fighting such women is considered "fighting morally corrupt people" by principle-ists. In 2007 a national crackdown was launched by the police in which thousands of women were warned and hundred were arrested. Violators of the dress code can be given lashes, fines and imprisonment. Sae'ed Mortazavi, Tehran's public prosecutor, made this clear when he told the Etemad newspaper: "These women who appear in public like decadent models endanger the security and dignity of young men". Mohammad Taqi Rahbar, a fundamentalist MP, agreed, saying, "Men see models in the streets and ignore their own wives at home. This weakens the pillars of family."

In October 2002, Ali Khamenei asked the Iranian women to avoid feminism and sexism in their campaigns for better female rights. "In the process of raising women's issues and solving their problems, feminist inclinations and sexism should be avoided," he told a group of female parliamentarians.

Like many other Grand Ayatollahs, Ali Khamenei believes that women should be wives and mothers. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has publicly stated: "The real value of a woman is measured by how much she makes the family environment for her husband and children like a paradise." In July 1997 Khamenei said that the idea of women’s equal participation in society was "negative, primitive and childish."

Fundamentalist scholars justify the different religious laws for men and women by referring to the biological and sociological differences between men and women. For example, regarding the inheritance law which states that women’s share of inheritance is half that of men, Ayatollah Makarim Shirazi quotes the Imam Ali ibn Musa Al-reza who reasons that at the time of marriage man has to pay something to woman and woman receives something, and that men are responsible for both their wives' and their own expenses but women have no responsibility thereof. Women, however, make up 27% of the Iranian labor force, and the percentage of all Iranian women who are economically active has more than doubled from 6.1% in 1986 to 13.7% in 2000.

In terms of health, life expectancy went up by eleven years between 1980 and 2000 for both Iranian men and women. With respect to family planning, "levels of childbearing have declined faster than in any other country," going from 5.6 births per woman in 1985 to 2.0 in 2000, a drop accomplished by a voluntary, but government-sponsored, birth control program. The fact that these changes have occurred within an Islamic legal regime suggests that formal legal status may not be a key factor determining women’s well-being.

Women in Iran are only allowed to sing in chorus. Also women are not allowed to attend Sport stadiums. In 2006 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, surprisingly, ordered the vice president to allocate half of the Azadi Soccer Stadium to women. Six Grand Ayatollahs and several MPs protested against Mr. Ahmadinejad's move, and finally the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered the president to reconsider his order and follow the clergy.