Cautionary Tale of a Gender Apartheid

I grew up in Iran and moved to the US when I was 20 years old. There has always existed a cultural and socioeconomic divide between these two countries. However, the gap widened significantly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. The Iran of today, although still familiar in many basic forms, is also very different from what it was 5 decades ago. Like most places on earth, it has benefited from the technological advancements of the last 2 decades, but it has also adhered to the old Islamic rules more firmly, compared to the pre-revolutionary era. We have laws and cultural mores in most countries around the globe that help a large number of humans live and function together. You can find extreme and crazy laws in any country, including the United States. However, there is one group of laws that, by default, are made and imposed to suppress people and rob them of their natural freedoms. They become a lot more heinous when they target one segment of society based on their genetic makeup.

Some of you may have heard about the "Women, Life, Freedom" movement that took place approximately three years ago in Iran. It was initiated by the death of a young lady who was arrested by the morality police for "supposedly" not wearing proper clothing in public. Keep in mind that they were not talking about her running around in a bikini or lingerie, but instead not being covered head to toe and showing a small portion of her hair. I briefly wrote about this a while back, at the height of the movement. Unfortunately, the suppression of women continues to be a serious problem in Iran and many countries of that region, so I would now like to take a deeper dive and discuss the origin and the long-term impacts of morality and religious-based laws in a sociological and psychological framework of a nation.

The key point of making laws and imposing them to punish the unlawful is control. A perfect example is traffic laws designed to control traffic. They are designed to ensure public safety, prevent accidents, and maintain order on roadways. Most drivers all over the world stop when they see a red traffic light, and go when they see a green one. It is easy to comprehend the logic behind making and imposing the laws that govern traffic on public roadways. It was simply invented to keep all riders, drivers, passengers, and pedestrians safe. The logic behind morality laws in the Islamic Republic of Iran is very different, though. They are made and imposed based on the premise that men in general and by default are basically animals when it comes to sex and sexuality, and lack the capacity and capability to control themselves. One example that is used in some religious texts is the comparison between a man and a woman to a lion and a gazelle. Men are hunters by nature, and women are just prey to be hunted. Let's keep all the imposing opinions of objectifying women and downgrading the control mechanisms in men for later and just "try" to understand the logic behind this notion by taking a time-travel back in history, first.

Keeping women covered in public places is an example of specific rules and laws compiled in what is sometimes referred to as Islamic or Shariah law. These lessons and guidelines on how to live in an Islamic society date back approximately 1400 years, at the inception of the religion, and have been passed down through generations of religious scholars. Many of them are directly from the Islamic Holy book, the Quran, or "pearls of wisdom" from Prophet Mohammad himself or some of his early disciples. We need to keep in mind that some of these were quite progressive for their time, considering how people used to live 1400 years ago in that part of the world. For example, some folks deemed multiple female offspring an embarrassment, and even in some cases, buried some of their daughters alive! This was mainly due to the harsh nature of life in the desert and the numerous ongoing disputes and fights that were often settled through physical confrontation. In their minds, they simply needed more boys and men in order to survive. To his credit, Prophet Mohammad was among the very first people who advised against this practice and discouraged men from killing their female offspring. However, one of the compromises was the allowance of early marriage and the right to marry multiple wives. Keeping more girls alive translated to having more women around at a later time, which led to the introduction of several rules and laws governing the treatment of women. Prior to these laws, many men would freely rape any available woman and conducted their sex life very much in a predetory fashion. They would also resort to violence and physical altercations to resolve their disputes before and/or after the rape. Therefore, came the concept of having consent from a woman before sex outside of a monogamous relationship in a structure of a temporary marriage (Sigheh). Men needed to take responsibility for the financial support, which was the transactional nature of the temporary marriage, and financially take care of the offspring if they had sex with a woman even once! They also put a significant responsibility of abstinence on women since they (technically) had to wait until their next menstrual cycle before engaging in intercourse with another man. The purpose was to establish paternal roots in case of a pregnancy. However, this practice has evolved since the advent of contraceptives; many ladies who strictly partake in this activity for its transactional nature are on birth control. If the objective for going through these processes was to (in a way) civilize the violent aspects of male sexual behavior in the past, it has now morphed into a sanctioned form of prostitution in many cases.

Now, let's discuss the concept of covering (protecting) women from the hungry eyes of men. This notion is not original to Islam or even organized religion, for that matter. It has been practiced on and off again throughout history and was considered a norm in several ancient cultures. Unfortunately, the concept of men trying to impose different rules to control women is old, but I like to argue that Islam has taken it to the next level! In my opinion, Islamic-imposed hejab (covering the hair and skin of women) is a public demonstration of how they are, by nature, the "weaker sex" and need monitoring and protection by men. In fact, to this day, in many Islamic courts, a woman is considered to be less than a man. I am going to use an example to demonstrate this general point. There is a query called Dieh or Diayh in Islamic law, which is a form of financial compensation paid to the victim or the victim's family in cases of certain offenses, including the unintentional killing in a motor vehicle accident. The law clearly dictates that the payment made for harming or the unintentional killing of a woman is Â½ the payment made for a man. Well, it is not far-fetched from this extreme example to imagine how normal it could be to impose other laws and regulations to limit and control women in a country governed by this type of mindset. Ordering women to cover their hair and skin in public can be viewed as an open demonstration of men imposing their will on women, even to dress as they deem proper. It is a symbolic gesture of suppression and imposition of (man-made) religious wills on society. You can find a large number of folks, including many women, who defend this practice under the banner of personal and individual choice. They claim that it is only the woman's business how they choose to live and dress, including wearing the Hejab. I completely understand and support the idea, as long as the individual has the right to decide not to wear it, they should also have the right to do so. Or better yet, wear it whenever they like, but also have the freedom not to wear it when they don't! That is essentially how most middle-class families like mine managed their religious beliefs in the large cities of Iran before the 1979 revolution. Wearing the Hijab was a personal choice, done out of respect, not fear of prosecution. I recall seeing my mother in mini-skirts and high heels with makeup and a huge hairdo for parties, but in a headscarf and without makeup when visiting a religious site or attending a funeral, for example. The key difference was choice, instead of force! What makes Iran's situation particularly unique is that many of these laws and regulations were introduced after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Prior to that, Iran was striving towards equal rights and had changed several old-fashioned laws to protect women's and children's rights. In fact, it was one of the only progressive countries in the region, moving rapidly towards education, modernization, and upward mobility of the middle class. Some examples that demonstrate the progressive movement toward women's rights prior to the revolution include female representation in Congress and the Senate, as well as the presence of female judges on cases at the Supreme Court level.

I started the title of this piece with the phrase, cautionary because I can see the traces in some Western Countries of gravitating towards old-fashioned religious logic as a way to protest and block the progressive movements. On both sides of this argument, between progress and tradition, we can share the cautionary tale of what happened in Iran about 45 years ago. I have seen how a fast-paced progressive movement, which was bringing a country out of superstition and suppression, was halted due to the fear of societal decay and chaos. And I also saw how the fear that was first deemed as a warning grew to become the law of the land and took a country back decades, practically overnight!

Be well,
Siamak