Women, Religion and Culture in Iran

240 Pages·2001·19.01 MB·English

by  Sarah Ansari

<Women, Religion and
Culture in Iran
SOC.REG.AS.
BRITT.
Royal Asiatic Society Books
The Royal Asiatic Society was founded in 1823 'for the investigation of subjects
connected with, and for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts in
relation to, Asia'. Informed by these goals, the policy of the Society's Educational
Board is to make available in appropriate formats the results of original research
in the humanities and social sciences having to do with Asia, defined in the
broadest geographical and cultural sense and up to the present day.
The Man in the Panther's Skin
Shota Rustaveli
Translated from the Georgian by M. S. Wardrop
Women, Religion and
Culture in Iran
Edited by
Sarah Ansari and Vanessa Martin
RO Routledge
U
TLEDG Taylor & Francis Group
E
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First Published in 2002
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX 14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
First issued in paperback 2011
© 2002 Sarah Ansari and Vanessa Martin
Typeset in Minion by LaserScript Ltd, Mitcham, Surrey
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but
points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent
ISBNI3: 978-0-700-71509-1 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-51531-3 (pbk)
Contents
Acknowledgements Vll
1 Introduction 1
Sarah Ansari
2 Women, Shi'ism and Cuisine in Iran lO
Shireen Mahdavi
3 CMS Women Missionaries in Iran, 1891-1934: Attitudes
Towards Islam and Muslim Women 27
Gulnar Eleanor Francis-Dehqani
4 A Presbyterian Vocation to Reform Gender Relations in Iran:
The Career of Annie Stocking Boyce 51
Michael Zirinsky
5 Women and Journalism in Iran 70
Hossein Shahidi
6 From the Royal Harem to a Post-modern Islamic Society:
Some Considerations on Women Prose Writers in Iran from
Qajar Times to the 1990s 88
Anna Vanzan
7 Gender and the Army of Knowledge in Pahlavi Iran,
1968-1979 99
Farian Sabahi
vi Contents
8 From Islamization to the Individualization of Women in Post-
revolutionary Iran 123
Azadeh Kian-Thiebaut
9 The Politicization of Women's Religious Circles in Post-
Revolutionary Iran 139
Azam Torab
10 Islam, Women and Civil Rights: The Religious Debate in the
Iran of the 1990s 165
Ziba Mir-Hosseini
11 Perceptions of Gender Roles Among Female Iranian Immigrants
in the United States 185
Ali Akbar Mahdi
12 Communities in Place and Communities in Space: Globalization
and Feminism in Iran 211
Asghar Fathi
Contributors 225
Index 228
.7lcknowledgements
The Editors gratefully acknowledge the support of the British Academy, the
Royal Asiatic Society, and the History Department, Royal Holloway, University
of London.
vii
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1. ntroduction
Sarah Ansari
It is undeniable that, over the course of the twentieth century and in many parts
of the world, women and issues 'connected with them have steadily moved
centre stage much more publicly than had been the case in earlier times. Gender,
of course, has always been crucial in the shaping of social, economic and
political relations, but now any pretence that this has ever been otherwise has
been stripped away to allow a much clearer view of the ways in which gender and
society interact. Misperceptions persist, however, particularly concerning
women living in Muslim societies. As often as not, the dominant image of a
'typical' Muslim woman combines powerlessness and passivity on an individual
level with what seems like a fierce and active loyalty to her community and its
shared values, especially religion and culture. That certain groups of Muslim
women have always had access to power by virtue of kinship or marriage
connections confounds 'traditional', often western, ideas about divisions
separating the so-called 'public' and 'private' spheres in Muslim societies and
the distribution of effective influence between them. 1 Revealing the range of
realities involved in the lives of Muslim women past and present, in effect
deconstructing the notion of 'Muslim woman' as a homogeneous category, has
become a priority for historians and others concerned to challenge the kinds of
myths and misconceptions that endure. At the same time, there is a need to
recognize that commentators, fired by the excitement of these new insights, can
sometimes err too far in the opposite direction, putting a kind of retrospective
pressure on women of earlier times to prove themselves in ways acceptable to or
expected by people of today. The challenge for anyone writing on issues
concerning women, therefore, is to reflect and analyse developments accurately
but realistically, whilst recognizing that the years since the nineteenth century
1