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Women in Iran Emerging Voices in the Women's Movement
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Hammed Shahidian
ISBN: 0-313-32345-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-32345-4
224 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 10/30/2002
List Price: $91.95 (UK Sterling Price: £63.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Description: Examining controversies that developed chiefly after the end of Iran-Iraq War and the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, this study focuses on Islamic and secular feminisms, especially as they treat such issues as individuality, gender roles, sexuality, cultural authenticity, and interculturalism. Shahidian emphasizes challenges to governmental policies in daily life, Islamic reformist politics, and secular opposition. He investigates various ideological and political means that female activists employ to resist state policies and achieve legal benefits. Relying on reformist Islamic writings, oppositional literature, personal contacts with feminist authors and underground activists, Shahidian discusses how individuals experience and respond to coercive gender policies.

Reformist bargaining with the patriarchy, which has secured for some women an active role in some spheres of life, diverts feminist attempts to alter gender relations in any fundamental way, Shahidian contends. In Iran, reformists have espoused an agenda that reflects the interests of middle- and upper-class, professional, gainfully employed, heterosexual (Muslim) women. Though weaker and less ideologically and organizationally consolidated than reformist women, many secular feminists have drawn attention to working women's rights, and have sought re-vision of such key issues as morality, sexuality, and the relations between individual and community. These activists and authors question the very assumptions of existing political culture and reject prioritizing socio-political objectives that relegate gender to peripheral significance.
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction: Revolution, Gender, and Cultural Politics
    Modifying Patriarchy: Rescuing Women from Allah's Men
    Feminism or Islamism? Challenges of Feminism in Post-Revolutionary Iran
    Dual Society: Gender Agonies in an Islamic State
    Pushing the Boundaries of Political Culture: The Cultural Outlook of the Iranian Women's Movement
    Toward the Future: Gender and the Possibilities of Cultural Politics
    Bibliography
    Index
About the Author: HAMMED SHAHIDIAN is Honorary Research Fellow at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Glasgow (2001-2002). He teaches Sociology at the University of Illinois at Springfield, where he was honored with the University Scholar Award. He is also a research associate at the UIS Institute for Public Affairs. Focusing mainly on gender and political activism and Iranians in exile, Shahidian has published in Qualitative Sociology, Current Sociology, Sexualities, Sociological Inquiry, Feminist Studies, and elsewhere. He serves on the Editorial Board of Sexualities.
LCC Class: 305
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