At the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity: Personal Reflections

I have spent most of my adult life defending and promoting women's human rights. I came to this field through English literature, largely innocent of theories of feminism. By the time I encountered these theories formally in the 1970s as secretary general of the Women's Organization of Iran (WOI), I had already experienced their essence in my contacts and conversations with my students from the English Literature classes at the National University of Iran. A good novel poses abiding issues one can appropriate and contexualize--issues of individual space, of burden of choice, of the tension between authority and freedom.

I found my students very interested in exploring these questions in the context of their own lives. They lived in a culture that was changing, a culture that was torn between tradition and modernity. My students experienced it in the form of a tension between their wish to make their own decisions about their lives and their equally powerful commitment to make their parents and community happy and proud. Was it possible to accomplish both under the prevailing circumstances? Could a woman in Iran be a good Muslim and at the same time live a modern life? How would a woman acquire identity? Did she have "honor" in her own right, or was her honor inextricably bound to that of her menfolk? Is enjoying Western music betraying tradition? Does a brother have the right to punish his sister for seeing and talking with a boy? Why are the norms the way they are? Who has defined the rules? Does changing patriarchy offend the divine order? Is it possible to imagine women marrying many men instead of men marrying many women? Does a woman have the moral right to rebel? Does she have the courage to rebel? Is it more honorable to rebel or to toe the line?

This kind of dialogue, which began in the classroom in 1968--a year after I had finished my studies in the Unites States and returned to Iran--and continued in and out of the classroom thereafter, led to the establishment of the Association of Iranian University Women, which I, with the support of colleagues and students, founded in 1969. We became affiliated with WOI in 1970 as part of a network of fifty-five autonomous organizations. Subsequently, in 1971, I became secretary general of WOI, a position I held until the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

At WOI, I learned that the questions my students raised and the issues that occupied the attention of a majority of ordinary women in Iran's towns and villages were different only in style and expression. Rural illiterate women used different words to voice their problems and aspirations but meant the same thing. They too wanted freedom and equality. They wanted to be recognized for the work they did at home and in the field; to have control over their lives and the life of their children; to feel secure knowing that they would not be divorced simply because their husband had uttered the word; to be sure that their husband would not bring home another wife or concubine. They wanted for their daughters an education that would help them have a better life than theirs. They wondered how what they wanted might be reconciled with what their religion demanded and their environment enforced.

During my tenure at WOI, I learned that rights are closely related to discourse. Iran had undergone a phenomenal constitutional revolution at the turn of the century. The new constitution was founded on modern ideas of limited government and popular sovereignty. Women had participated in the revolution for freedom, though largely unaware of its significance for their rights. The constitutional movement was concerned with modernity and rights, though, and women had a stake in both. The next seventy years witnessed a gradual increase in women's awareness and an evolving effort to achieve the will and...