Free, yet Bound: An Analysis of the Paradoxical Status of Women in the Islamic Republic of Iran
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2018
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Political Science
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Abstract
The modem day Iranian woman enjoys access to higher education, job mobility, and even voting rights, yet she is forced to adhere to strict clothing laws and is bound by sex segregation laws every day. This paper analyzes the inherent paradox of both freedom and repression by providing a timeline of the life of a woman in Iran after the dramatic Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the emergence of Islamic theocracy embodying the means of power in Iranian society. With an understanding of the mix of both freedom and repression, this paper then investigates the reaction and response from women to their treatment to provide an understanding of how the modern Iranian woman has emerged and how post-revolutionary laws have contributed to both her advancement and constraints. This research argues that the government's choice to grant freedoms, while also instituting strict gender based laws in Post-Revolutionary Iran, has created the modern day paradoxical Iranian woman who is both highly integrated into civil society yet subjected to harsh and discriminatory laws (Terman, 2010, p.289).