Secular and Islamic Iranian Feminism: Goals and Achievements

The Iranian feminist movement came to express its rejection of the reality based on male discrimination and the treatment of women as second-class citizens. Iranian feminism was influenced by the first Western feminist wave that called for equality between the sexes, the right to work and education, and the issues of hijab and veils, which were considered among the basic issues of Iranian feminism during the Shah’s era, especially after he followed the Westernization regime. It was natural for Iranian feminism in that era to come up with goals, proposals, and practices similar to Western liberal feminism. However, after the establishment of the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, the scales shifted due to the impact of the revolution, so that Iranian feminism would be affected by its reality, to take the form of traditional and reformist Islamic feminism, approaching the demands of Western movements in the issue of political rights in particular, but rejecting the Shah’s regime and the issues it raised concerning women and the derogation of their rights, especially after the veil was banned in public places, in addition to issues of women’s political and social rights. Therefore, the goals and achievements of the two movements differed due to their influence on internal and external variables. Accordingly, our study represents a comparison of the eras of two different regimes: a secular one and an Islamic one, which was reflected in the nature, forms, goals, and achievements of Iranian feminism.