Iran: challenges Facing the Women’s Movement

By Asieh Amini - The main demand of all social movements in Iran in the past decade has been to move through social and civil paths toward democracy.  The women’s movement, as a leading movement in this field, has also advanced its civil struggle based on “changing the law” and using “peaceful” methods.  Today, however, the question is whether the women’s demands and movement, as well as methods of struggle, are going to change now that the civil atmosphere is becoming more unstable and insecure.  When the regime cannot tolerate change, and responds to the movement’s peaceful demands with the harshest reaction, employing torture, rape and murder, are we still committed to changing the women’s legal status within the present legal framework?

The reality is that not only the women’s movement, but the entire civil society today, faces the challenging question of whether its demands have changed compared to six months ago?  And whether their peaceful methods of struggle in demanding their rights are going to change in face of the regime’s repeated imposition of violence against the people and civil society activists.

The reality is that the first priority of independent women’s rights activists has always been to move along the demands of the people.  In prior years, the women’s movement boasted its “non-political” status, not because it lacked political demands, but because it did not engage in “political behavior with the goal of reaching power,” but with the belief that political change must be rooted in social change.

Today, this has happened.  Today, the demand for change is raised by the society’s body, and social demands are moving toward change within the “regime’s framework.”  Therefore, the serious challenge facing the women’s movement is whether it must continue to advance its goal for gender equality by negotiating with the regime’s power structure.

Many political activists have, in the past few days, voiced their concern with the increasing violence in the country’s political atmosphere, pointing out that harsher slogans and public behavior can engulf the nation in serious crises.  They have emphasized their commitment to the continuation of civil and nonviolent behavior by the people, and to wisdom and intelligence rather than passion.

Today, many of our friends are in prison.  There is no free atmosphere to make group decisions based on consensus.  Many active women from various women’s rights groups have been forced to leave the nation under increasing pressure.  The intensity of oppression, which has also afflicted the Internet, makes it more difficult for them to cooperate.  We are bound, however, to continue to prioritize our “specific feminist demands.”

Although women have been in the frontlines of protests, none of our social, legal and political demands have yet been met.  Rather, these demands have been placed on a broader path that is backed by the majority of the Iranian people.  Today, we are forced to reinterpret our demands.  We must accept that, although our older demands and requests remain, if we want to continue to seek gender equality and non-discriminatory legal, social and political systems, we must develop newer and more effective “methods” if we are to pursue our demands on the broader path of the struggle for democracy.

The need today is for our campaign to reinterpret itself based on today’s needs and become the voice of social movements.