Our third issue of 2014 is a thematic one that examines various economic and social dimensions of gender in contemporary Iran. I am grateful to Editorial Board member Roksana Bahramitash for compiling this interesting set of articles that collectively further knowledge and understanding of the transformations in gender roles that have been occurring in Iran since the establishment of the Islamic Republic there in 1979. For at least 50 years, gender often has been linked with the study of issues pertaining to women, both in the popular imagination and in academic scholarship. However, gender actually is about both men and women, even though the literature about men's roles has been comparatively smaller than that about women's roles. For this reason, we are pleased to begin this issue with an article that analyzes the representation of Iranian masculinity in Persian fiction. The focus of Amirhossein Vafa's ‘The Predicament of Complicity with Hegemonic Masculinity’ is the short story, ‘In Another Place,’ by Goli Taraghi.Footnote1 He argues that in this story, as well as in her other stories and novels, Taraghi's representations of urban, upper middle class masculinities and femininities are central elements. Vafa, who grounds his analysis in postcolonial feminism, suggests that Taraghi does not depict—and may not see—the complexities of changing masculine roles in contemporary Iran, but rather she depicts only a complicit and hegemonic masculinity that subordinates women.
In the real Iran, as opposed to the fictional Iran, there is ample empirical evidence that the social roles of women, and by implication those of men also, have been changing during the past 35 years. A major catalyst, argues Elaheh Koolaee in our second article, ‘The Impact of Iraq-Iran War on Social Roles of Iranian Women,’ was the eight-year war that Iraq initiated in September 1980 by launching a surprise invasion along the entirety of the two countries' several hundred-kilometers' common border. Changing roles for women on the western war front included their participation in military, economic and social mobilization; and in the rest of the country, the absence of so many men who were serving on the war front pushed many women to leave home and assume roles in the public sphere in order to care for their families. The war thus had a major impact on the traditional roles of Iranian women.
One interesting change has been the emergence of women entrepreneurs. Roksana Bahramitash and Hadi Esfahani Salehi document this development in our third article, ‘Gender and Entrepreneurship in Iran,’ by presenting the results of a World Bank Enterprise Survey they conducted in Iran. They found that women were well represented among owners of larger enterprises, especially in the services sector, electronics and information technology. However, there was a significantly lower rate of women entrepreneurs in medium and small enterprises and among low-income women without post-secondary education.
The next article, by Elhum Haghighat, analyzes paid employment of women in ‘Iran's Changing Gender Dynamics in Light of Demographic, Political, and Technological Transformations.’ Haghighat provides valuable data to assess how the percentage of women in Iran's employed labor force compares with that of other Middle Eastern countries. She argues that highly educated, middle and upper women in Iran encounter fewer economic and social obstacles in respect to efforts to obtain equal rights than do lower class women who have less education and economic resources.
Azadeh Kian continues the discussion of women's paid employment in ‘Gender Social Relations and the Challenge of Women's Employment.’ She argues that even though government policy in Iran has been to discourage women's employment because of an ideological bias that the home and caring for the family are the most suitable place and role for women, both economic necessity and educational aspirations have pushed women to seek paid employment. Working women are assuming a greater role in decision-making within the family and demanding more gender equality within Iranian society, two consequences that are likely to change gendered power relationships over time.
Changing gender relations are the focus of Niki Akhavan's article, ‘Family Feuds: Digital Battles Over Women's Place in Contemporary Iran.’ She argues that these changes have led to a crisis for the upholders of traditional family values, and the latter have been using online digital sites to reframe the discourse about women's rights in a more conservative direction. Their efforts, however, have not seemed to attract widespread popular support. Furthermore, their views about the role of women and the family not only are being challenged by Iranian reformers but also by foreign media sources readily available on the Internet.
The final article in this issue, ‘Low-Income Islamic Women, Poverty and the Solidarity Economy in Iran,’ discusses those women who tend to be the staunchest supporters of traditional family values: low-income women who are practicing Muslims. According it its author, Roksana Bahramitash, these women have developed their own ‘solidarity economy’ to help those in need, because the male-dominated state welfare agencies and male-dominated private economy tend to ignore their economic problems.
Notes
1 Vafa's analysis is of the original Persian novella, ‘In Another Place.’ An English translation of it is included in a recent collection of Taraghi's short stories: Goli Taraghi (2013) The Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons, translated by Sara Khalilli (New York: W. W. Norton).