Women Seeking Change

Women in Iran: Leadership From the Shadow

by MAURA CASEY

(This article first appeared in the Connecticut newspaper "The Day" on June 28, 1998)

A billboard in Teheran reads "The veil is only for protection ­ not for limitation."

To many Westerners, the plight of females in Iran appears tenuous indeed. It is illegal for females above the age of 9 to appear in public without their heads veiled and bodies entirely covered. Women cannot serve in certain occupations, such as the military, and, until just last month, women were not allowed to be judges. It is difficult for a married woman to divorce her spouse, yet for men the right to divorce is unquestioned and done with ease. Married women in Iran who wish to leave the country for any reason must first obtain the permission of their husbands.

Despite these restrictions, females in Iran are hardly the fragile flowers that their legal limitations might imply. Iranian women are proud, strong, and work at changing society there with the tenacity of the rug makers (mostly women) who create the intricately-designed Persian carpets for which Iran is famous."In Iran, women are the boss," said Fereshteh Taerpoor, a divorced businesswoman. "In any organization, any family, the main role is the woman's. We call it, 'leadership from the shadow.' Some women pretend to agree with their husbands, but they usually have a better idea. Their leadership is hidden."

Taerpoor, like many Iranian women, is comfortable with hejab, the Islamic dress code which dictates that women's heads and bodies must be entirely covered in public. "Our law is based on religious law," she said. "For two years after the 1979 revolution there was no law about women wearing the veil. But it was thought that women should be valued because of their talent and intelligence, not because of their bodies.

"It is clear in the Koran that women are to be covered. But the law of Islam also makes it clear that women should be colorful at home, and give joy to their husbands," she said. And, she pointed out, women in Iran are better off than women in other Middle-Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia, where women cannot drive or vote. In Iran, the voting age for women is 15.

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To Taerpoor, Iranian women have much to be optimistic about. But Shirin Ebadi, an outspoken Iranian attorney, author and human rights advocate, views the situation of women in Iran far less benignly. I interviewed her in her Tehran office. "Women are in a very bad position here, " she said. "Under our law, women are legally half of a man." This means, she explained, that if a man and a woman were both injured in a car accident and they sued the person responsible, the woman could only get half the damages that the man could collect. Women's lack of custody rights after divorce, and the lack of children's rights, are also of great concern to Ebadi.

Ebadi is cautiously optimistic. The Shah, she explained, in 1935 forbade women to wear the veil in public, scandalizing many religious families who then kept their daughters home. After the Islamic revolution in 1979, the government required women to be covered in public, but sanctioned broader roles for women. This reassured religious families and encouraged more females to gain an education and attain careers. "Imam Khomeini made women who never thought of moving outside the house do it," she said. "And when a woman steps outside the house and has status in society, that is the beginning of liberation. Now, the women's movement is very strong in Iran. It was not strong under the Shah. "

Women's collective clout was apparent last year with the election of Mohammad Khatami, the moderate president who called for more civil rights in Iran. Khatami was the dark-horse candidate, unknown to most, until a popular women's magazine, Zanan (Women), put him on its cover. Khatami surged forward in the polls and, with the overwhelming support of women, won with nearly 70 percent of the vote.

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Zanan's deputy editor, Roza Eftekharj, said that one of the magazine's primary missions since its founding in the early 90's has been to explain to women their rights - and the lack thereof - under the law. "We try to explain that Islam gives women more rights than exist in [Iranian] law right now. The way Islam is interpreted is not in accordance with modern times," she said. "Hejab - wearing a veil - is a general law for women in Iran. But it is not the main problem for women. Right now, we can't even have a civilized conversation about this issue. The crucial issues for women are custody, divorce, and being able to study for any field or enter any occupation that we want," she said. "We think that if we change men's attitudes toward women, which is a gender and sex issue, we will change their attitudes toward religion as well. Women are not stopping," she said. "And the people support this lively debate."

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"The Day" Associate Editorial Page Editor Maura Casey traveled to Iran in June 1998 to help establish a journalists' exchange program between our two countries through the New England Society of Newspaper Editors.

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