By Jubin Katiraie
The brutal oppression of women was one of the key policies of Iran’s regime to usurp the rights of the Iranian people after the 1979 revolution, which saw the mullahs rise to power.
One of the measures was making the headscarf mandatory for women shortly after the revolution. Iran’s women responded by organizing a great rally, but the regime repressed them. Women members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK/PMOI) took to the streets in support of women who did not want to wear the headscarf.
With the slogan “Either headscarf or repression”, the regime set the foundation for suppressing women in Iran and deprived the women of all their rights. The regime has since founded 27 entities for the suppression of the women.
Depriving women from social rights went so far that according to Somayeh Mahmoudi, a member of the regime’s parliament: “The seven-member board consists of members of the presidium of the parliament after reviewing the application of women representatives to attend the presidium of the commissions, they stressed that the women must care about the kids and the household…
“When the capacity of women in the parliament is not used in the composition of the presidium of the parliament and the commissions, or female employees can’t even take the commission’s secretary exam, how to deal with the anti-family policies while women are the mainstay of the family. (Hamshari daily 7 July)
When this is the situation of women who are integrated into the regime’s power structure, you can imagine the situation of the ordinary women who live under the rule of the regime. It is not without reason that the regime is at the bottom of the international women’s rights chart.
In an article titled, “Discriminatory view on women,” Tayebeh Siavashi, a former Iranian MP, wrote: “In the Vice Presidency for women and family affairs website, if you carefully look, in every global assessment, Iran is one of the last four countries in the employment of the women. Even the regional statistics show that, despite all the efforts, concerns, empowerment, and education, women are not allowed to play a role in senior management.
“They did not allow a woman to take the position of a deputy minister while Kuwait has 50 women in its parliament and has determined a 50 percent quota for the women. The problem is that the parliament, with its patriarchal view, does not accept that the women take the place of the board.
“It is strange for them and complains exists that the 10th parliament did not endure the women to enter the board. Some even said, how can women sit for four hours on the governing board, while there are many things that they must keep in mind.” (Jahan Sanat 7 July)
In his 16-article communiqué about the family wrote, the Iranian regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei described his thoughts about the role of the women in the society as such:
“Supporting the dignity of spouses, the role of mothers and housewives and the paternal and economic role of men and the educational and spiritual responsibility of women and men and empowering family members in responsibility, family interactions and fulfilling their role and mission.” (Khamenei.ir 3 September 2016)
What this clearly shows is that the regime is not tolerating any position for the women in the country’s economic and political affairs.
And the regime’s state-run daily Setareh Sobh wrote: “The way of patriarchal thinking has never left the minds of our legislators. A patriarchal parliament and a patriarchal government, or better said, patriarchal sovereignty, will put the rule of a social system with patriarchal laws.” (Setareh Sobh 25 August 2019)
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Authorities Seek to Intimidate Iran’s Society by Oppressing Women
