Abstract
The participation of the women of the village of Aliabad1 in the Iranian Revolution of 1978/1979 was a continuation of their earlier activities and concerns at the local political level. In local level political competition and conflict, women had played significant and central roles in communication, building connections, and diplomacy, through their networks and groups, in order to protect the interests and well-being of their families and relatives, to promote justice, and to maintain harmony in the community. When the women realized that their traditional concerns were now no longer contained within the arena of local level village politics but were subject to forces at the national level of political activity, they joined their menfolk in revolutionary demonstrations with the intent of influencing the course of national level politics.
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Notes
To protect privacy, the name of the village and all names of people are pseudonyms. Without the cooperation and friendship of the residents of Aliabad, my research could not have been conducted. Field research was carried out between June, 1978 and December, 1979, under a dissertation fellowship from the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies. For research and writing support, I am grateful to that association and to the Anthropology Department and the Southwest Asian and North Africa program of SUNY, Binghamton, the Educational Foundation of the American Association of University Women, the Center for Near Eastern and North African Studies of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Franklin and Marshall College, and Santa Clara University.
See Hanna Papanek, “Men, Women, and Work: Reflections on the Two-Person Career,” American Journal of Sociology vol. 78, no. 4, pp. 852–872, for her discussion of two-person careers such as that of the corporate executive, foreign service employee, or armed services officer and his wife, where one person has the position with the salary, but the wife is also enlisted for the work required by his position.
See Andrea B. Rugh, Family in Contemporary Egypt (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1984.)
See also Anne H. Betteridge, “To Veil or Not to Veil: A Matter of Protest and Policy,” in Guity Nashat ed., Women and Revolution in Iran (Boulder: Westview Press, 1983); and Temma Kaplan, “Women and Communal Strikes in the Crisis of 1917–1922,” in Bridethal, Koons, and Stuard eds., Becoming Visible (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1987).
Some portions in the following text are taken from these sources: Mary Hoogland (Hegland), “The Village Women of Aliabad and the Iranian Revolution,” REPEH vol. 4, no. 2 and vol. 5. no. 1, pp.27–46; M. E. Hegland, “Aliabad Women: Revolution as Religious Activity,” in Nashat, Women in Revolution in Iran; M. E. Hegland, “Imam Khomeini’s Village: Recruitment to Revolution,” unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Dept. of Anthropology, SUNY-Binghamton; M. E. Hegland, “Political Roles of Iranian Village Women,” Middle East Report 138, pp. 14–19, 46. I am grateful to the editors for permission to use this material.
See Di Leonardo, Micaela, “The Female World of Cards and Holidays: Women, Families, and the Work of Kinship,” Signs vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 440–453, who points out that “the work of kinship” is carried out by women both for “altruistic” reasons of caring for their families and for reasons of self-interest, although the two are not often very clearly separated. For additional discussion on the importance of women’s kin networks, see Yanagisako, Sylvia Junko, “Women-Centered Kin Networks in Urban Bilateral Kinship,” American Ethnologist vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 207–226.
For more discussion on women’s neighborhood and kin networks used for political activism, see Saud Joseph, “Women and the Neighborhood Street in Borj Hammoud, Lebanon,” in Beck and Keddie eds., Women in the Muslim World (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1979); Joseph, “Working Class Women’s Networks in a Sectarian State: A Political Paradox,” American Ethnologist 10, pp. 1–22; Julie Peteet, “No Going Back: Women in the Palestinian Movement,” Middle East Report 138, pp. 20–24, 44.
Temma Kaplan, “Female Consciousness and Collective Action: The Case of Barcelona, 1910–1918,” Signs vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 545–566; and “Women and Communal Strikes in the Crisis of 1917–1922.”
Seyyids are people who consider themselves to be descendants of the Prophet Mohammad through the male line. Seyyids are usually more concerned about religious matters than average people. In Aliabad, many of the seyyids were traders and thus were encouraged to support Ayatollah Khomeini by their associations with the Shiraz bazaar, where many merchants supported the revolutionary movement.
See also Kaplan, “Women and Communal Strikes in the Crisis of 1917–1922,” p. 437.
Compare with Kaplan, “Female Consciousness and Collective Action,” and “Women and Communal Strikes in the Crisis of 1917–1922,” in which she also points out that “women’s neighborhood networks [can be] galvanized into political action groups.” According to Luther P. Gerlach, and Virginia H. Hine, People, Power, Change: Movements of Social Transformation (Indianapolis: Bobba-Merrill Educational Publishing, 1987), such is not surprising. In their analysis of recruitment to movements, these authors found that “intra-group recruitment flows along lines of kinship ties and proximity of residence,” and again, “In general, recruitment to a movement occurs through pre-existing social relationships of a positive-affect nature.”
Janet Bauer also notes the importance of “religious and interpersonal networks” for women’s participation in the revolution. See Janet Bauer, “Poor Women and Social Consciousness in Revolutionary Iran,” in Nashat ed., Women and Revolutionary Iran, pp. 157–158.
In her studies of women’s activities in some strikes between 1917–1922, Temma Kaplan also found that women went to the locus of action and decision making regarding their concerns. She found that women organizing from neighborhood and kin networks did not form lasting organizations after their strikes, as was also the case among the Aliabad women, as they had aimed primarily at providing for the welfare of their families through their strike activities, and not at becoming involved in politics on a regular basis. Striking similarities exist between the situations described by Kaplan and the participation of women in the Iranian Revolution. Kaplan uses the concept of “female consciousness” to explain why women took part in strikes: they accepted the female responsibility of preserving life and wished to force the authorities into providing them with the food and necessities to do so. The Aliabad women seemed also to be concerned about the preserving of life, although in this case their concerns developed more as a result of outrage and fear about physical harm to their family members and relatives than insufficient food. One wonders how women’s concern for protecting their families has taken form and expression during the last several years in Iran.
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Hegland, M.E. (1998). Women and the Iranian Revolution: A Village Case Study. In: Diamond, M.J. (eds) Women and Revolution: Global Expressions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9072-3_11
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