User:Lotusi95/sandbox

 Women's Role

The Iranian Revolution was a gendered revolution; much of the new regime’s rhetoric was centered on the position of women in Iranian society. Beyond rhetoric, thousands of women were also heavily mobilized in the revolution itself. Different groups of Iranian women were mobilized and actively participated in the Iranian revolution alongside their male counterparts. Ayatollah Khomeini said that “A nation whose respected women demonstrate in modest garb [hejab] to express their disgust with the shah’s regime- such a nation will be victorious.” Not only participating through voting, women contributed to the revolution through marches, demonstrations and chanting slogans. Khomeini pleaded women to participate in anti-Shah demonstrations in various cities. Furthermore, women later responded to Khomeini’s urge to vote in favor of the Islamic Republic and new constitution cities. Women were so pivotal to the revolution that in response to a suggestion from a top aid to ban women from coming to group audience, Khomeini said "I threw the shah out with these women, there's no problem in their coming." Some argue that this politicization and mobilization of women made it difficult for the new regime to push them out of the public and political spheres. The revolution resulted in an unprecedented entry of Iranian women into politics and women used these newfound political instruments for women’s issues. There were also particular women who were part of the inner circle of the leaders of the new regime such as Marzieh Hadidchi.

The contributions of women to the revolutions and the intentions behind these contributions are complex and layered. The motivations of women for being part of the revolutions were complex and varied among a plethora of religious, political and economic reasons and women participating were from various classes and backgrounds. There were different groups of women with various agendas that sometimes converged an sometimes diverged from the Islamic Republic's. For example, organized feminism which was around since the Pahlavi dynasty joined the revolutionary movement after the shah dropped the cabinet position on Women's Affairs to appease the Islamists. Members of the Women's Organization of Iran marched in support for the revolution. Yet, there were later some tension between feminists' dress and the revolution's stance on women's clothing and they began to feel uncomfortable at oppositional events.