How can Iranian women overcome the struggles in achieving social equality?

Through the span of history there has been an increase in women inequality in Iran. Recently we got a glimpse of Iran’s battle with sexual orientation fairness. Speaking on behalf of these women struggling for their basic rights I believe we can bring changes to the current situation Iran’s government. We can enable that to happen by allowing Iranian women to have political positions so the legislature has the perspective of women when introducing new laws and ideas or when amending old laws. On top of it they also need to allow formation of women associations that help struggling women take care of each other in the midst of hardship. These struggles include escaping abusive relationships, monetary help with family necessities, representing political issues to the government or administrations and confronting workplaces that exploit them. Recently, there has been a discussion about Iranian females having limited voice in society. One incident that occurred recently, is about a girl who was denied entrance into a stadium to watch a football match due to her gender. She was later caught disguised as a man and punished by a life imprisonment, she opposed this by committing suicide in front of the courthouse. International criticism towards the Iranian government in regards to this circumstance put them under a lot of pressure to give women their deserved rights. Apart from the news there is also the fact that women of Iran have always been struggling from abuse by their spouse and in the workplace. They were being exploited and suppressed in all ways. With nowhere to go and no option to fight back, they had nothing to do but withstand the constant abuse. Overall, my solution would enable women to lead a progressively effective and more secure life in Iran, issues with respect to sex balance probably won’t vanish yet noteworthy change will occur.

In chapter four of ‘Women and Politics in Iran’ we learn about the Shah’s policies in modernizing Iran. The issues of gender and equality of Iran were being mended by Ashraf Pahlavi, the twin sister of the Shah. The Shah arranged the Women’s Organization of Iran with his twin sister as president to organize the women of Iran. The FPL (Family Protection Law) was introduced from then. The FPL set up many new laws into place such as marriage laws, minimum age required for marriage, conditions of divorcing another person. The FPL addressed more issues in ensuring women rights were increased significantly. Its targeted child custody on how women could go about on applying for child custody. A big factor that FPL had huge impact on was polygamy, this gave women a lot of rights even though it was a bit unfair but the fact that it was being tackled by FPL showed the slow but some progress of Iran in giving women their deserved rights. The state even legalized abortion to give women rights to decline having a child on the other hand it also helped control the population of Iran. The FPL mostly helped wealthier women and some educated middle-class women. Under the Shah’s rule women had the ability to seek for jobs and enjoy their employment benefits. However, many husbands prevented their wife from going to work as a working wife with income would diminish their power as the income head of the house. But even then, many women worked to contribute to the family. Others preferred staying at home and being their own boss while the husband does all the works. In general women were making progress in getting their rights throughout time. But there always remained the fact of women being paid lower wage compared to men which was always an issue. Many businesses started exploiting the young population of Iran with low payments and heavy workload. Underaged and gender biased pay was a new problem that started taking shape. But, even with all these changes made by the Shah and his sister, women struggles still remained especially when he lost his power. It started reverting back to the old male dominant state. Women started losing their power and voice they had gained from his reign. They started becoming invisible to the society, back to the suppressed state.

This is shocking how all the progress made just slowly started disappearing. This can be seen in the news that was reported at the beginning how the young lady set herself on fire due to the lack of liberty in her own actions. Bringing it all together, I propose allowing women to tackle this issues together as a united organization. The organizations should hold fundaraisers to fund their ideas and strategies. Have weekly assemblies and catch all the struggles of different women. At the end of the month they could work with powerful men in politics to get certain issues passed to the government. This will give them a voice to start with. This can later be broadened to voting rights and slowly to electing females in powerful positions which can bring on more significant changes. However, all these won’t happen over a night, it will require a lot of dedication and co-operation on both sides from the government of Iran and the patience from women. They have to tolerate the struggles for a little longer. With this in mind, I’d urge everyone to help out these women by spreading their struggles over the internet. As we all know the internet access has been restricted in the middle east which limits their voice even more internationally. These women deserve equality before the law, freedom of choosing their own clothing, equal representation in politics, equality in the economic sphere, equality in the family, prohibition of violence and prohibition of sexual exploitation. With even more international pressure the government will have no other option but to sitdown with the leaders of these women organizations and figure out a solution that satisfies both sides.