Negotiating gender during times of crisis in the Islamic Republic of Iran: visual propaganda from the Iran–Iraq War to COVID-19

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the representation and negotiation of gender norms in visual iconography in the Islamic Republic of Iran against the backdrop of the master narrative of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88), which serves as a prefigurative image repertoire for propaganda and regime messaging in the post-war period. Drawing on images from the war itself and after, the article presents a historical perspective on the dynamics of representing prototypical gender roles, not only in relation to war but labour and industry as well. The article also highlights how gender roles were renegotiated in state propaganda during the COVID-19 pandemic, which includes the depiction of female martyrs defending the nation. However, despite the capability of state propaganda to renegotiate gender norms, this process remains circumscribed by the mechanisms of masculine myth-making and the male archetype of the martyr. In effect, such processes do not connote gender equality but rather unmask discourses on female martyrdom as double-edged: While agency in history is ascribed to women, the logic of the gender hierarchy is reified at the same time. Such observations regarding state-sponsored visual iconography in contemporary Iran contribute to the study of propaganda techniques used by authoritarian regimes.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Goulia Ghardashkhani and the anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ For more on the figure of Zaynab and Nurses Day in Iran see Peter J. Chelkowski, ‘The Iconography of the Women of Karbala: Tiles, Stamps, and Posters’, in The Women of Karbala: Ritual Performance and Symbolic Discourses in Modern Shiʿi Islam, ed. Kamran Scot Aghaie (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), 130–1.

² ‘Army of Nurses [in Persian]’, Mashregh News, December 10, 2021, mshrgh.ir/1311244 (accessed November 21, 2003).

³ Kevin L. Schwartz and Olmo Gölz, ‘Visual Propaganda at a Crossroads: New Techniques at Iran’s Vali Asr Billboard’, Visual Studies 36, no. 3–4 (2021): 476–90; Kevin L. Schwartz and Olmo Gölz,

‘Re-Staging American Triumph as American Carnage’, Visual Studies 37, no. 4 (2022): 403–4.

⁴ On the distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ propaganda see Haifeng Huang, ‘Propaganda as Signaling’, Comparative Politics 47, no. 4 (2015): 419–37.

⁵ On society’s negotiation processes surrounding martyrdom and the heroic, see Olmo Gölz, ‘The Imaginary Field of the Heroic: On the Contention between Heroes, Martyrs, Victims and Villains in Collective Memory’, helden.heroes.héros (2019): 27–38; Olmo Gölz, ‘Gemartert, gelächelt, geblutet für alle: Der Märtyrer als Gedächtnisfigur in Iran’, in Gewaltgedächtnisse: Analysen zur Präsenz vergangener Gewalt, eds. Nina Leonhard and Oliver Dimbath (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2021), 127–50.

⁶ Nicholas O’Shaughnessy, ‘Persuasion, Myth and Propaganda’, Journal of Political Marketing 3, no. 3 (2004): 87–103, 93.

⁷ Ibid., 94.

⁸ Shirin Saeidi, Women and the Islamic Republic: How Gendered Citizenship Conditions the Iranian State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 118.

⁹ On the role of female fighters during the war see Elahe Koolaee ‘The Impact of the Iraq-Iran War on Social Roles of Iranian Women’, Middle East Critique 23, no. 3 (2014): 277–91. Koolaee notes ‘According to the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs, 6,420 Iranian women were martyred on the Iran-Iraq battlefront. In addition, 710 women became disabled and 71 women were taken as prisoners of war. As per the report of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Council of Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs, the total number of war martyrs is 230,000 people, and women accounted for about 3% of martyrs during the eight-year imposed war’, 281. and Also see Saeidi, Women and the Islamic Republic, 119–28; Mateo Mohammad Farzaneh, Iranian Women in the Iran-Iraq War (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2021).

¹⁰ It should be noted, however, that Ali Shariati viewed Fatima as a revolutionary role model, willing to fight injustice and oppression. See Rose Wellman, Feeding Iran: Shiʿi Families and the Making of the Islamic Republic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2021), Kindle Reader e-book, location 2553.

¹¹ Minoo Moallem, Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Politics of Patriarchy in Iran (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).

¹² On this balancing act of the postrevolutionary state see Saeidi, Women and the Islamic Republic.

¹³ Arielle Gordon, ‘From Guerrilla Girls to Zainabs: Reassessing the Figure of the “Militant Woman” in the Iranian Revolution’, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 17, no. 1 (2021): 68. For a visual example of this motif, see: Peter J. Chelkowski and Hamid Dabashi, Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 88.

¹⁴ Gordon, ‘From Guerrilla Girls to Zainabs’, 68–9.

¹⁵ Olmo Gölz, ‘Martyrdom and Masculinity in Warring Iran: The Karbala Paradigm, the Heroic, and the Personal Dimensions of War’, Behemoth 12, no. 1 (2019): 35–5; Olmo Gölz, ‘Der Heroismus der Revolutionsgarden im Iran-Irak-Krieg: Von der Gewaltgemeinschaft zur Avantgarde des Martyriums’, in Gewalt und Heldentum, eds. Olmo Gölz and Cornelia Brink (Baden-Baden: Ergon, 2020), 151–78.

¹⁶ Janet Afary, Sexual Politics in Modern Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Gölz, ‘Martyrdom and Masculinity’; Afsaneh Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Haggay Ram, Myth and Mobilization in Revolutionary Iran: The Use of the Friday Congregational Sermon (Washington, D.C.: American University Press, 1994).

¹⁷ Andrew Parker et al., ‘Introduction’, in Nationalisms and Sexualities, ed. Andrew Parker et al. (New York: Routledge, 1992), 6; Karen Hagemann, ‘Mannlicher Muth und Teutsche Ehre’: Nation, Militär und Geschlecht zur Zeit der Antinapoleonischen Kriege Preußens, (Paderborn: Brill, 2002).

¹⁸ Afsaneh Najmabadi, ‘The Erotic Vaṭan [Homeland] as Beloved and Mother: To Love, To Possess, and To Protect’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 39 (1997): 444.

¹⁹ On the social status and benefits accorded to the families of martyrs see Kaveh Ehsani, ‘War and Resentment: Critical Reflections on the Legacies of the Iran-Iraq War’, Middle East Critique 26, no. 1 (2017): 5–25; Neema Noori, ‘Rethinking Legacies of the Iran-Iraq War: Veterans, the Basij, and Social Resistance in Iran’ in Political and Military Sociology: An Annual Review, Volume 40, eds. Neovi M. Karakatsanis and Jonathan Swarts (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2013), 119–40; and Shirin Saedi, ‘Creating the Islamic Republic of Iran: Wives and Daughters of Martyrs and Acts of Citizenship’, Citizenship Studies 14, no. 2 (2010): 120.

²⁰ For more on this phenomenon see Kevin L. Schwartz, ‘“Citizen Martyrs”: The Afghan Fatemiyoun Brigade in Iran’, Afghanistan 5, no. 1 (2022): 104–8.

²¹ ‘The Mural at Vali Asr Square Celebrates the Day of Honouring the Mothers of Martyrs [in Persian]’, Mehr News Agency, January 14, 2022, https://mehrnews.com/xWTMQ (accessed November 21, 2023).

²⁴ ‘The “Vali Asr” Billboard with the Slogan Honour for the Homeland was Unveiled [in Persian]’, Mizan News, December 28, 2021, https://www.mizanonline.ir/003IDN (accessed November 21, 2023).

²⁵ Gölz, ‘Martyrdom and Masculinity in Warring Iran’; Minoo Moallem, Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Politics of Patriarchy in Iran (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards.

²⁶ Kamran Scot Aghaie, ‘Gendered Aspects of the Emergence and Historical Development of Shiʻi Symbols and Rituals’, in The Women of Karbala: Ritual Performance and Symbolic Discourses in Modern Shiʻi Islam, ed. Kamran Scot Aghaie (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), 4.

²⁸ Kevin L. Schwartz and Olmo Gölz, ‘Going to War with the Coronavirus and Maintaining the State of Resistance in Iran’, Middle East Report Online, September 1, 2020, https://merip.org/2020/09/going-to-war-with-the-coronavirus-and-maintaining-the-state-of-resistance-in-iran/ (accessed November 21, 2023).

²⁹ Erzsébet N. Rózsa and Tamás Szigetvári, ‘The Resistance Economy: Iranian Patriotism and Economic Liberalisation’, in Market Liberalism and Economic Patriotism in the Capitalist World-System, ed. Tamás Gerőcs and Miklós Szanyi (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2019), 183–212.

³⁰ For the full series of ‘War, Work Until Victory … ’ see Yanon Design, ‘War, Work Until Victory … ’, Yanon Design, October 13, 2012 http://yanondesign.com/1391/07/to-support-of-the-iranian-work-and-capital.html (accessed November 21, 2023).

³³ For an interesting discussion of the depictions of wounded veterans and their caregivers in art, contrary to their absence in state-sponsored murals, see Roxanne Varzi, ‘Iran’s pieta: motherhood, sacrifice and film in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war’, Feminist Review 88 (2008): 86–98.

³⁴ On the gendered division of labour in Iran, see Azadeh Kian, ‘Gender Social Relations and the Challenge of Women’s Employment’, Middle East Critique 23, no. 3 (2014): 333–47.

³⁶ Wellman, Feeding Iran, Kindle location 836.

³⁷ For an opinion by Khamenei in this regard see Kian, ‘Gender Social Relations’, 336.

³⁹ Niki Akhavan, ‘Family Feuds: Digital Battles Over the Place of Women in Contemporary Iran’, Middle East Critique 23, no. 3 (2014): 349–50.

⁴¹ The World Bank Gender Data Portal, ‘Iran, Islamic Rep’., https://genderdata.worldbank.org/countries/iran-islamic-rep (accessed November 21, 2023);. World Health Organization, ‘2020 Health Workforce Snapshot: Islamic Republic of Iran’, https://rho.emro.who.int/sites/default/files/Profiles-briefs-files/IRN-WHOEMHRH654E-eng.pdf (accessed November 21, 2023).

⁴² Statistical Center of Iran, ‘Manpower’, Iran Statistical Yearbook, 1399/2020–1, 205. https://www.amar.org.ir/Portals/1/yearbook/1399/4.pdf?ver=O5OHitNxzeFGvjoNNJi–g%3d%3d (accessed November 21, 2023).

⁴⁶ Schwartz, ‘Citizen Martyrs’, 113.

⁴⁷ ‘Renewal of the Covenant between Defenders of the Nation and Health Defenders [in Persian]’, Payigāh-i Khabarī Tahlīlī Tābān Turbat, September 21, 2020 http://tabantorbat.ir/?p=27677 (accessed November 21, 2023).

⁴⁸ ‘“Women of my country” on the Billboard at Vali Asr Square [in Persian]’, Mehr News, October 13, 2022 https://www.mehrnews.com/xYGN6 (accessed November 21, 2023).

⁴⁹ For a discussion on the Islamic Republic’s propaganda in face of the protest movement in 2022, see Kevin L. Schwartz and Olmo Gölz ‘What the Islamic Republic’s propaganda tells us’, Qantara.de, May 2, 2023. https://qantara.de/en/article/iran-protests-what-islamic-republics-propaganda-tells-us (accessed November 23, 2023).