The Position of Women in an Iranian Village

According to traditional Marxist analysis the subjugation of women can be understood in terms of the economic base. Their emancipation will only be possible when women are included in socially productive work (Engels 1960:510) and there has been a corresponding general rise of economy and culture (Trotsky 1970:11). The failure of women to achieve equal status despite their participation in the process of production, however, indicates that a materialistic analysis of the problem is not sufficient to explain the inequality between the sexes and suggests that an ideological dimension must be added and the gender specificity of the oppression of women examined (Elson and Pearson, 1981, Molyneux, 1981). Although the social relations of production may ultimately 'transform all social relationships including family relationships, in the course of development of capitalism' (Beechey, 1979:71) frequently, particularly in the Muslim world, the dynamics of capitalist relations of production are severely constrained by the existence of less advanced relations of production and by the supremacy of patriarchy. In this context there may exist strong psychological and ideological dimensions that enable men to exchange women and to control both women's productive and reproductive capacities within the family unit. This authority which is based on patriarchical and kinship relationships is not diminished by women's central role in agricultural production. Even where women's work is not directed to subsistence production but to production of exchange goods sold for a profit on the market, it is men who often benefit with the result that women do not become any less subjugated. It has to be recognized that the subjugation of women cannot be eliminated through economic, legal or institutional changes alone. If women are to achieve true emancipation they need to break free of the psychological and cultural forces that are gender specific and have reinforced economic subjugation. As the following case study illustrates the participation of women in socially productive work may result in their further enslavement rather than their liberation.1 Women may then become too valuable to educate and the money they earn may well finance the education of men. This study indicates that rural women in Iran are particularly vulnerable to the psychological and economic control of men which has remained unaffected by the economic independence given to women by Islamic and secular laws. The ineffectiveness of legislation in changing the lives of rural women is clearly seen by noting the rights granted to women by Islam and by the laws passed under the Pahlavis ( 1921-78) which are totally ignored in the villages.