Iranian women

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A Persian woman depicted during the Safavi period, from wall painting in Chehel-sotoon Palace, Isfahan.

Traditional image of a Persian woman holding a cup of wine, as depicted at Hasht-behesht palace, Isfahan, 17th century Iran.

Iranian women (or Persian women) are women of or from traditional Persian or modern Iranian culture. Although Persian women are often viewed as Iranian, they are not necessarily from Iran and can be from a variety of different countries.

1 Persian women/in history
2 Iranian woman in modern Iran
3 Iranian women throughout the world
4 Persian women's day
5 Lists and Images of famous Iranian women and female entities
6 Notes
7 References
8 See also
9 External links

[edit] Persian women/in history

Persians have respected the sanctity of women and their role in the society as evident from their role in Achaemenid amnesty. For example, they were given posts such as head-workers to construct Persepolis.

Some historians in fact argue that it was Cyrus the Great who, ten centuries before Islam, established the custom of covering women to protect their chastity. According to their theory, the veil passed from the Achaemenids to the Hellenistic Seleucids. They, in turn, handed it to the Byzantines, from whom the Arab conquerors inherited it, transmitting it over the vast reaches of the Arab world.^[1]

Empress Soraya on the cover of an Italian magazine.

A Sassanid era mosaic excavated at Bishapur. Some mosaics were denuded during the Islamic period. This one is kept at The Louvre.

A Qajari Persian woman, seen here smoking the traditional Qalyan.

Iranian newspaper clip from 1968 depicting female Iranian Nuclear Engineering PhDs posing in front of Tehran's Nuclear reactor.

On the other hand, women played an important role in everyday life in Achaemenid dynasty. They worked beside men in workshops and received the same salary as men. High-born women even exercised an influence on affairs of state. Female members of the Achaemenid royal family possessed their own estates, and documents survive showing their active involvement in management: letters relate to the shipment of grain, wine, and animals to palaces from distant land-holdings. The only limits on the extent of the authority exercised by the King's mother, for instance were set by the monarch himself. ^[2] Such traditions continued into Sassanid times, however with less extent. Purandokht, who were daughter of king Khosrau II ruled Persian empire for almost two years before resigning, and women can be seen on some Sassanid reliefs as well. In Shahnameh, the greatest persian poet and Iranologist, Ferdowsi, tried to offer a picture of persian women. More than twenty women appear in Shahnameh, all of them are wise, intelligent and respectable women. Two women, Homai and Gardieh, become kings of Iran in these stories. Ferdowsi himself married an educated and kind woman. The beauty of Persian girl and Persian mentality can be seen in numerous masterpieces of persian paintings and miniatures. Drawing a Persian girl dressed in colors with Persian wine at hand has been a classic style for portraying love. However nudity can not be seen in these works in contrast to western paintings with religious themes or ancient Greek style. Women were an integral part of the sport in ancient Persia. Polo originated in the royal courts of ancient Persia 2,500 years ago. The queen and her ladies-in-waiting would play against the emperor and his courtiers. Indeed the main square in the historic city of Isfahan was a royal polo ground whose dimensions were copied for all other polo grounds around the world.^[3] Gender equality has been one of the basic principles of Persian culture for centuries. Lack of gender prejudice is one of the fundamental tenets of Zoroastrianism.

[edit] Iranian woman in modern Iran

See main article: Iranian women's movement

Centuries later, at the dawn of the 20th century, many Iranian modernists who had traveled to Europe for higher education, came back to view the Islamic veil as a symbol of backwardness. Its removal, in their view, was essential to the advancement of Iran and its dissociation from Arab-Islamic culture. For the counter-modernists who wanted to uphold the Islamic social and gender orders, the European woman became a scapegoat and a symbol of corruption, immorality, and Westernization. In the Iranian body-politic the imagined European woman provided the subtext for political maneuvers over women's rights and appearance in the public space.

Catherine Zeta-Jones congratulating Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in Oslo, Norway, December 11, 2003.

Iran's Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11 became a turning point in the lives of Iranian women. Women participated in huge numbers and gained important positions for expressing their views, including journals, schools, and associations that flourished in the following period (1911-24).^[4]

But the defeat of the constitutionalists (1921-5) and the consolidation of power by Reza Shah (1925-41) had two contradictory impacts. Independent women's journals and groups were destroyed, while the state implemented social reforms such as mass education and paid employment for women. Reza Shah also initiated his controversial policy of Kashf-e-Hijab, banning the wearing of the Islamic Hijab in public. But like other sectors of the society in those years under Reza Shah's rule, women lost the right to express themselves and dissent was repressed.

With the advent of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, women's rights took yet another wild swing toward religious conservatism. Despite the decree of many of Iran's top clerics such as Ayatollah Taleghani, the state, under the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini made wearing the Hijab mandatory for all women, implementing strict religious codes for women in society. However, revolution brought many low and middle class women into public sphere. For many years, breaking the barrier of confinement of the private sphere had been a major source of frustration for advocates of women's rights in Iran. The Islamic revolution broke the barrier overnight. When Khomeini called for women to attend public demonstration and ignore the night curfew, millions of women who would otherwise not have dreamt of leaving their homes without their husbands' and fathers' permission or presence, took to the streets. Khomeini's call to rise up against the Shah took away any doubt in the minds of many devoted Muslim women about the propriety of taking to the streets during the day or at night.

Persian women as depicted in Japanese Anime. Seen here is "Farangis", the high priestess of Mithra, in the Anime series The Heroic Legend of Arslan.

The early 1990s witnessed a marked increase of employment for women. This increase was much more than the rate prior to the revolution. Such dramatic change in the pattern of labor force participation might not have been possible if Khomeini had not broken the barriers to women entering into the public sphere. Educational attainment for women, also a product of free education and the literacy campaign, contributed to this increase. In fact, today there are more women in higher education than there are men. The Islamic Republic had adopted certain policies to expand educational levels for women in order to ensure that sexual segregation paid off. These policies were to encourage women to become skilled workers in domains exclusive to women. For example, the government set quotas for female pediatricians and gynecologists and set up barriers against women wanting to become civil engineers.

In May 1997, a large number of women participated in presidential elections and overwhelmingly voted for Hojatolislam Mohammad Khatami, a reformist cleric who had promised reduction of repression and toleration of civil society institutions. His election opened a period when women could voice their ideas once again, with many becoming increasingly bolder in their demands and in their criticisms. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian human rights and feminist activist, further emboldened Iranian feminists inside Iran and cemented their relationships with Iranian feminist activists abroad.

The Sixth Majlis (Parliament) saw the emergence of some of Iran's strongest advocates of women's rights. Almost all of the 11 female lawmakers of the (at the time) 270-seat Majles took on the challenge of trying to change some of Iran's more conservative laws amidst a male dominated culture. However, during the elections for the Seventh Majlis, all of those representatives were banned to run for office by the all male Council of Guardians, only allowing conservative females to run for election. The new representatives, as expected, upon their arrival into office began reversing many of the laws passed by the reformist 6th Majles.

According to the research ministry of Iran, about 6% of full professors, 8% of associate professors, and 14% of assistant professors were women in the 1998-99 academic year. However, women accounted for 56% of all students in the natural sciences, including one in five Ph.D. students.[1]

[edit] Iranian women throughout the world

For centuries, Iranian people were spread over an area, known as Iranian cultural continent. Moreover, many Iranian citizens immigrated to other countries as the US and Europe during last several decades.

Mina Bissell is an Iranian-American biologist and a world-recognized leader in research on breast cancer. She was the winner for 1996 E.O. Lawrence Award, the highest scientific honor bestowed by the United States Department of Energy. Nature medicine journal published her biography as a distinguished scientist.

Anousheh Ansari (‎born 12 September 1966 in Mahshad, Iran) is the Iranian-American co-founder and chairman of Prodea Systems, Inc. Her previous business accomplishments include serving as co-founder and CEO of Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI). The Ansari family is also the title sponsor of the Ansari X PRIZE. On 18 September 2006, just a few days after her 40th birthday, she became the world's first female space tourist, and the first Iranian in space.

From up to down:Safeeieh Ammeh Jan (prominent Persian-Afghan women right activist), Farzaneh Khojandi (Tajik Persian poet), Golrokhsar Safi Eva (Mother of Tajik nation) and Nusrat Bhutto (Pakistan first lady ;Iranian Kurd)

Shohreh Aghdashloo (born 11 May 1952 in Tehran, Iran) is an Academy Award nominated Iranian-American actress. Aghdashloo made her American film debut in 1989 in a starring role in Guests Of Hotel Astoria. After appearing in serveral TV shows, Aghdashloo shot to fame in 2003 co-starring opposite Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly in director Vadim Perelman's House of Sand and Fog, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

[edit] Persian women's day

According to Iranian calendar, 29th of Bahman (18 February) is considered Persian women's day. History of the celebration dates back to ancient times and Zoroastrian tradition. Iranians also celebrate International Women's Day and also Islamic women's day (birthday of Prophet's daughter). The latter is the official women's day in Islamic Republic.

[edit] Lists and Images of famous Iranian women and female entities

List of famous Iranian women

Images of famous Iranian women

[edit] Notes

^ The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation, by Sandra Mackey. (Penguin Group, 1996).
^ Arthur Cotterell, From Aristotle to Zoroaster, 1998, ISBN 0-684-85596-8.
^ Polo comes back home to Iran
^ J. Afary, The Iranian constitutional revolution, 1906-11. Grassroots democracy, social democracy, and the origins of feminism, New York 1996.

[edit] References

Piyrnia, Mansoureh. Salar Zanana Iran. 1995. Maryland: Mehran Iran Publishing.
Brosius, Maria. Women in Ancient Persia, 559-331 B.C. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford Oxford University Press (UK), 1998.