The Islamic Republic of Iran and the ‘Woman’s Question’: Social Struggle Between Neoliberalism and Authoritarianism

Abstract

This article explores the ‘woman’s question’ within the Islamic Republic in the context of neoliberal policies. Challenging the ‘exceptionalist’ view that treats Iran’s authoritarianism as isolated from global forces, it argues that the state’s patriarchal and repressive tendencies stem from its integration into global capitalism. Women’s increasing activism is examined as part of wider class struggles over state control and resource distribution. Through a historical lens, the article reveals how gender, class, and authoritarianism intersect in Iran’s political economy, offering new insights into the structural foundations of both state repression and resistance in contemporary Iranian society.

Keywords

Women Iran Authoritarianism Neoliberalism Islamic Republic of Iran

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ahmadi

(2006) Islamic feminism in Iran: Feminism in a new Islamic context. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 22: 33–53.

Amnesty International (2022) Iran: Details of 321 deaths in crackdown on November 2019 protests. Available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/2308/2020/en/.

Amnesty International (2021) Iran: Security forces use ruthless force, mass arrest and torture to crush peaceful protests. Available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/08/iran-security-forces-use-ruthless-force-mass-arrests-and-torture-to-crush-peaceful-protests/.

Aslan

Rashid

(2020) Economic and socioeconomic consequences of US sanctions on Iran. Center for Iranian Studies in Ankara 1(1): 1–32.

Azizi

(2024) Donne, Vita, Libertà. L’Iran in fiamme [What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom]. Milano: Solferino.

Bahramitash

(2007) Iranian women during the reform era (1994–2004) a focus on employment. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 3(2): 86–109.

Bayat

(2013) Post-Islamism: The Many Faces of Political Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Benjamin

(2014) Angelus Novus. Saggi e frammenti. Torino: Einaudi.

Connell

Dados

(2014) Where in the world does neoliberalism come from? Theory and Society 43(2): 615–634.

10.

Dabashi

(2012) Corpus Anarchicum: Political Protest, Suicidal Violence, and the Making of the Posthuman Body. New York: Springer.

11.

Dabashi

(2016) Iran Without Borders: Towards a Critique of the Postcolonial Nation. London: Verso Books.

12.

Denoeux

(2002) The forgotten swamp: navigating political Islam. Middle East Policy 9(2): 56.

13.

Forozan

Shahi

(2017) The military and the state in Iran: the economic rise of the Revolutionary Guards. The Middle East Journal 71(1): 67–86.

14.

Friedl

(2009) New friends: gender relations within the family. Iranian Studies 42(1): 27–43.

15.

Göle

(2002) Islam in public: new visibilities and new imaginaries. Public Culture 14(1): 173–190.

16.

Habibi

(2014) Can Rouhani Revitalize Iran’s Oil and Gas Industry. Middle East Brief 80: 1–10.

17.

Harris

(2017) A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran. Berkeley: University of California Press.

18.

Human Rights Watch (2020) Iran: No justify for bloody 2019 crackdown. Available at: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/11/17/iran-no-justice-bloody-2019-crackdown.

19.

Kaveh Mirani

(1983) Social and economic change in the role of women, 1956-1978. In: Nashat

(ed.) Women and revolution in Iran. Boulder: Westview Press, pp. 69–86.

20.

Keddie

(1973) Is there a Middle East? International Journal of Middle East Studies 4(3): 255–271.

21.

Khamenei

(2019) Second phase of the revolution. Available at: https://english.khamenei.ir/news/6415/The-Second-Phase-of-the-Revolution-Statement-addressed-to-the.

22.

Khosrokhavar

(2001) L’Iran, la démocratie et la nouvelle citoyenneté. Cahiers internationaux de sociologie (2): 291–317.

23.

Kozhanov

(2023) Between development, growth, and survival: Iran’s economic priorities before and under President Raisi. Muslim World 113(1–2): 45–60.

24.

Koo

Han

(2018) To veil or not to veil: Turkish and Iranian hijab policies and the struggle for recognition. Asian Journal of Women’s Studies 24(1): 47–70.

25.

Maljoo

(2023) A capitalist economy without robust capitalist production. Iranian Studies 56(2): 395–398.

26.

Mann

(1993) Nation-states in Europe and other continents: diversifying, developing, not dying. Dedalus 122(3): 115–140.

27.

Masoudi

(2023) Iranian discourses and practices regarding US sanctions. Rouhani and Raeisi Administrations. In: Kirkham

(ed) The Routledge handbook of the political economy of sanctions. New York: Routledge.

28.

Mehran

(2003) Khatami, political reform and education in Iran. Comparative Education 39(3): 311–329.

29.

Mernissi

(1996) Women’s Rebellion & Islamic Memory. London: Zed Books.

30.

Milani

(1993) The evolution of the Iranian presidency: from Bani Sadr to Rafsanjani. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 20(1): 83–97.

31.

Moghadam

(1992) Patriarchy and the politics of gender in modernizing societies: Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. International Sociology 7(1): 35–53.

32.

Najmabadi

(1993) Veiled discourse-unveiled bodies. Feminist Studies 19(3): 487–518.

33.

Najmabadi

(2000) (Un)veiling feminism. Social Text 18(3): 29–45.

34.

Najmabadi

(2005) Mapping transformations of sex, gender, and sexuality in modern Iran. Social Analysis 49(2): 54–77.

35.

Niakooee

(2020) Explaining the crisis of the green movement in Iran (2009–2017). Democracy and Security 1: 1–31.

36.

Pesaran

(1983) The system of dependent capitalism in pre-and post-revolutionary Iran. International Journal of Middle East Studies 14(4): 501–522.

37.

Robinson

(2019) Secularization, Weber, and Islam. In: Huff

Schluchter

(eds) Max Weber & Islam. Abington: Routledge, pp.231–245.

38.

Robinson

(2001) Social theory and globalization: The rise of a transnational state. Theory and Society 30(2): 157–200.

39.

Robinson

(2004) A theory of global capitalism: Production, class, and state in a transnational world. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

40.

Robinson

(2007) Beyond the theory of imperialism: global capitalism and the transnational state. Society Without Borders 2: 5–26.

41.

Sadeghi-Boroujerdi

(2023) Iran’s uprisings for women, life, freedom: over-determination, crisis, and the lineages of revolt. Politics 43(3): 404–438.

42.

Saidabadi

(1998) Progress and regress in EU-Iran relations since 1989. Security Dialogue 29(1): 123–125.

43.

Shahi

Abdoh-Tabrizi

(2020) Iran’s 2019–2020 demonstrations: the changing dynamics of political protests in Iran. Asian Affairs 51(1): 1–41.

44.

Sohrabi

(2009) The curious case of Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani. Brief, Waltham: Crown Center for Middle East Studies.

45.

Sune

(2020) Internationalisation, global capitalism and the integration of Iran. Third World Quarterly 41(2): 359–377.

46.

Tahmasebi-Birgani

(2010) Green women of Iran: The role of the women’s movement during and after Iran’s presidential election of 2009. Constellations 17(1): 78–86.

47.

Valadbaygi

(2021) Hybrid neoliberalism: Capitalist development in contemporary Iran. New Political Economy 26(3): 313–327.

48.

Valadbaygi

(2022) Neoliberalism and state formation in Iran. Globalizations 1: 1–15.

49.

Van Engeland

(2013) Iranian women and legal pluralism: the impact on women’s rights. Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law Online 17(1): 50–69.

50.

Varzi

(2008) Iran’s Pieta: motherhood, sacrifice and film in the aftermath of the Iran–Iraq War. Feminist Review 88(1): 86–98.

51.

Weber

(2004) La scienza come professione. La politica come professione. Torino: Einaudi.