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Do Women Protest Organizations Have Political Transformative Potential in Iran?
Abstract
Important literature on civil society and women’s protests in Islamic Middle Eastern countries has focused on Arab and Turkish women, studying their different demands, messages and modes of socio-political participation. Iranian scholars have also documented historically unique role of women in civil society and women’s protests including their political proclivities against inequalities in the twentieth century. Yet a comprehensive study of the One Million Signatures Campaign (the Campaign) as a democratic women’s organization and their involvement in Iran’s Green Movement remains to be accomplished. Since its inception in 2006, the Campaign’s aim has been to “promote democracy from below” by building new linkages among various actors in civil society. It purports to contest the system of gender asymmetry and promote legal gender equality within the Shi’i state. It utilizes traditional strategies of mobilization and rely on the cyberspace to register discontent, raise gender awareness, lobby for legal reform and build alliances locally and globally. But in response, in particular since the contested June 12, 2009 presidential elections and the Green Movement protests, the government has taken severe measures to curtail or neutralize Campaigners, and further, has charged the Campaigners with “threatening” its national security. This study explores the Campaign as a civil society organization and its drive for change. It assesses its prospects and potentials, as well as its limits to augment change on behalf of women. It asks: how does the network of the Campaigners instigate change in view of state authoritarianism? What does women’s participation in the civil society organization suggest for the relationship of women to politics and more generally, women’s quest for equal rights in Iran? What are the likely future channels of access for the Campaigners to sustain change and help reform discriminatory gender laws? This project explores the Campaigners as active agents of political and social change. It explores their philosophical dispositions, multiple strategies to reform discriminatory gender laws, alliances with various groups and their transformative strategies to promote equality and democracy internally across the country and to communicate its grievances globally. Importantly, it delves into state-gender relations and considers the slow modification of the Campaign from a local protest network to a national civil society organization with a global reach. This paper will utilize primary materials gathered from field research, interviews, oral history collections, weblogs, email messages from and direct interactions with Campaigners and secondary sources in Persian and English.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Iran
Sub Area
Gender/Women's Studies