Women in the Islamic Revolution

This chapter considers the motives and goals of female activists, and their roles in the revolution. It shows how secular and religious idealists joined forces in a popular revolt “against immorality,” and how women’s values either influenced, or utterly failed to influence the new rulers’ priorities. The chapter explores how gender-segregated services and schools met the demands of many women, and even generated female-only jobs, while other new policies stripped women of previous rights and jobs. It also examines how women’s hardship and grief in the Iran–Iraq war helped cement the revolutionary regime’s hold on power. In the Islamic Republic, both women and men sought to draw boundaries on each other, establishing distinctions of “gendered citizenship.”