Chapter 1
Misogyny, Driving Force of Khomeini-style Fundamentalism
Rafsanjani, the Iranian regime's President, says: "Justice does not
mean that all laws should be the same for women and men... The differences
in body, height, sturdiness, voice, growth, muscle quality, physical strength,
perseverance in the face of disasters and resistance to disease in women
and men show that men are stronger and more capable in all these areas...
Men's brains are larger... These differences affect the delegation of responsibilities,
duties and rights!"1
The fundamentalist mind considers physiological traits as the determining
factors. We, on the contrary, believe that on the basis of the reasoning
laid out in the Quran, it is the distinctive human characteristics - cognizance,
free will and responsibility - that set the criteria. For this reason, and
in diametric opposition to what Rafsanjani says, there is no innate difference
between women and men in the delegation of rights, responsibilities and
duties.
In the mullahs' fundamentalist worldview, gender-based differences are used
to justify sexual discrimination and inevitably lead to enmity towards women.
This is the bedrock of the fundamentalists' rationale, the leitmotif and
cornerstone of their ideology, which gives them inspiration and the power
to mobilize their forces.
The ruling clerics in Iran issue directives dictating the color and style
of women's dress, prohibiting them from smiling in public, and barring them
from attending soccer matches. Through such acts, they motivate their fanatic
forces and claim that these actions advance the cause of Islam. We, on the
contrary, consider such acts detrimental to Islam. We do not tolerate any
restrictions or discrimination against women. In tomorrow's Iran, free from
compulsion, women will fully enjoy their individual and social rights. The
National Council of Resistance ratified and published in April 1987 a 13-point
plan on the rights and freedoms of women.2
By way of clarification only and without drawing any comparisons on the
content, I propose that gender-based discrimination does for fundamentalists
what the notion of racial supremacy did for Hitler's National Socialist
ideology: with it, he motivated his forces and mobilized them to invade
other countries.
Following the oppression of women, suppression of, and violent crackdown
on, thought is indispensable to this regime. Another example from Iran's
ruling regime: By issuing the anti-Islamic fatwa to murder Salman Rushdie,
his publishers and anyone selling his book, Khomeini revitalized his zealots,
demoralized by the Iran-Iraq War. The regime's theorists called it "a
new manifestation of power." We condemned the terrorist fatwa as anti-Islamic
and said that Khomeini had struck the most terrible blow to the dignity
of Islam.
The mullahs have murdered several Iranian converts. Among others, they arrested
the Reverend Mehdi Dibaj on this charge and sentenced him to death. Having
been forced to release him under international pressure, they deemed extrajudicial
execution the best solution: Reverend Dibaj was murdered shortly after his
release from prison. These acts, in our views, are abominable crimes, especially
since the Quran has explicitly emphasized, la Ikraha fed-din, there is no
compulsion in faith.
In tomorrow's Iran, Church and State will be separated and any form of discrimination
against the followers of other religions and denominations in the enjoyment
of individual and social rights shall be prohibited. No citizen shall be
treated favorably or discriminated against in getting elected, voting, employment,
education, judgeship and other individual and social rights on the grounds
of his or her belief and non-belief. Neither will the qualification of judicial
officials be based on their religious and ideological positions. Any form
of compulsory religious and ideological teaching and any attempt to force
practice or non-practice of religious rites and customs shall be forbidden.
The right of all religions and denominations to teach, disseminate and freely
perform their rites and traditions, and the respect and security of all
places of worship belonging to them are guaranteed. We have unequivocally
stated our views in this respect. The NCR ratified and published the plan
in question in November 1985.3 Prior to that, in our platform, we had pledged
to ban and condemn any form of censorship and inquisition. Contrarily, the
mullahs scrutinize everyone's beliefs as a prerequisite to employment in
offices or admission to universities. They subject all books to stringent
screening before publication. They have even required that "Islamic
covering," i.e., veils, be drawn onto the pictures of girl children
in the school books. Under the aegis of the mullahs, inquisition pervades
all sections of society.
We consider all such conduct as anti-Islamic and flagrant abuse of religion
to maintain power. Without such methods, the mullahs cannot rule. Lying
at the core of the mullahs' "religious beliefs", however, is gender-based
suppression, segregation and discrimination - a phenomenon that can be studied
in its theoretical sense or practical applications.
Misogyny in eyes of reactionaries
Theoretically, Islamic fundamentalism establishes its thesis on the differences
between the sexes and the conclusion that the male is superior and hence
the female is a slave at his service. A parliamentary deputy in Iran is
on record as saying, "Women must accept the reality of men dominating
them and the world must recognize the fact that men are superior."4
Ultimately, the fundamentalists do not believe women are human. More recently,
however, the fundamentalist ideologues try to equivocate in this respect.
One such theorist, Morteza Motahhari, contends paradoxically, "...
Women and men are equal in their human essence, but they are two different
forms of humans, with two different sets of attributes and two different
psyches..." Immediately, the emphasis: "Such differences are not
a consequence of geographic, historic or social factors, but are enshrined
in the essence of Creation. There is a purpose to these natural differences,
and any practice which contradicts nature and man's natural disposition
will bring about undesirable consequences."5
Worries about the dangers of overlooking the physiological differences between
men and women are illusory. The real danger throughout history lies in overemphasizing
these differences to justify and legitimize discrimination against women.
An evident example is Motahhari's endorsement of the conclusions from the
differences between the sexes: "All women are fond of being supervised
... Men's spiritual superiority over women was designed by Mother Nature.
No matter how much a woman wants to fight this reality, her efforts will
prove futile. Women must accept the reality that because of their greater
sensitivity, they need men to control their lives."6
From this standpoint, the right to divorce is exclusive to men, and is justified
as follows: "If the man does not put away his wife and remains loyal
to her, the woman will also love him and remain loyal to him. Therefore,
nature has given the key to the natural dissolution of the marriage to the
man."7
Accordingly, a woman's self esteem derives from the man, and so she does
anything to gain his esteem. Her soul and flesh, her feelings, even her
basic identity belong to and are identified with him. Man replaces God for
a woman, a view plainly contradictory to monotheism.
The principal value and criterion
From the fundamentalist mullahs' perspective, sexual vice and virtue are
the principal criteria for evaluation. The most ignoble and unforgivable
of all sins is sexual wrongdoing; piety, chastity and decency are basically
measured by sex-related yardsticks. Seldom do they apply to the political
and social realms. Purity or corruption are essentially judged according
to criteria that are in one way or another related to sex. When such a value
system evolves into the social norm, the walls of sexual demarcation become
taller, thicker and even more ubiquitous. Fundamentalism conceives of woman
as sinister and satanic; she is the embodiment of sin and seduction. She
must not step beyond her house, lest her presence in society breed sin.
She must stay at home, servicing her husband's carnal desires; if she fails
to comply, she is compelling her man to commit sin outside the home.
The fundamentalists look at the world and the hereafter through distorted,
sex-tinted glasses. Throughout history they have fabricated their own fantasies
and moral lessons and attributed them even to the Prophet Mohammad's ascension
to Heaven. Predictably, the fabricated stories focus on the gravity of sexual
sins and the severity of punishment meted out when such sins are committed.
Here's one reactionary theorist's fantasies shamelessly attributed to the
Prophet's me'eraj, or his ascension to Heaven : "I saw a woman hanging
from her hair whose brain was boiling because she had not covered her hair.
I saw a woman who had been hanged from her tongue and Hell's boiling water
was being poured into her throat, because she had irritated her husband.
I saw a woman in a furnace of fire, hanged from her feet because she had
left home without her husband's permission ..."8
Such fantasies fabricated by the reactionaries are nowhere to be found in
the Quran. The Quran contains more than 6,200 verses, the great majority
of which deal with the question of existence, history and the human being,
emphasizing the responsibilities of the human race. The total number of
verses focusing on religious precepts does not exceed 500, of which only
a few deal with sexual vice and virtue.
According to the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet), the Prophet enumerated
seven mortal sins, namely loss of faith in God's mercy, homicide, robbing
orphans of their belongings, sorcery and demagoguery, usury, and slandering
virtuous women. A common theme runs through these seven sins, however diverse
they may be: rather than being introspective, they all relate in one way
or another to social relations and the individual's relations with others
in society.
Looking at the list of the seven mortal sins, the question comes to mind
that while one of the mortal sins is slandering women, why do fundamentalists
exaggerate the sexual distinctions? They do so because it is the only way
for them to maintain a monopoly on Islam and seat themselves upon the throne
of religion. The fundamentalists abuse religion in the most despicable manner.
In the name of religion, they induce in their followers a constant feeling
of guilt emanating from sex-related criteria. They thus introvert the people,
leaving the masses wandering lost within themselves while the clerics reproach
them in the most vehement of religious terms. On one side are the sinful
throngs, who must look for some way to make up for their wrongdoing; on
the other are Khomeini and his clerics who portray themselves as paragons
of piety, distant from all sin and forbidden sexual domains. This is the
mechanism whereby many of these human beings, who have been turned inward
by feelings of guilt induced in them by the demagogic mullahs, are made
to feel indebted and obedient to the "pious religious jurist,"
the Vali-e-faqih. The more sins they commit, the more they owe to the clergy.
The mullahs in turn provide these people with enough material benefits to
make it worth their while to be recruited into the regime's various agencies
of repression.
Fundamentalism in power
When such reactionaries take over the helm of politics, they base their
rule on gender-based apartheid and discrimination and legalize the suppression
of women. This is where the inconceivable pain and suffering of millions
of my fellow Iranian women begin.
Omnipresent clampdown
The Quran teaches that people should not be subjected to scrutiny, particularly
in their private lives. In contrast, Iran's ruling clerics order their agents
to burst into people's homes at midnight to find out if women guests in
private parties are observing the compulsory veil. One woman reported that
government spies had asked her 8-year-old daughter at school whether her
mother wears the chador (the black head-to-toe veil) when her uncle visits
them at home.
The mullahs' apparatus of suppression is not comparable to those of classical
dictatorships, for the basic fact that the conventional methods of social
control employed by such dictatorships could not maintain the detested clerics
in power. The Iranian regime has 20 specialized, nationwide organs of suppression.
Besides, the mullahs have established ostensibly religious socities and
associations in all offices, universities, schools, factories, military
units, neighborhoods and even in the religious seminaries. The main task
of these associations is to keep the public in check. In addition to keeping
watch on political behavior, the members of these associations must monitor
the relationships between men and women, and focus particularly on the personal
behavior of women. It is these duties - supervising the styles and colors
of women's apparel; enforcing the segregation of men and women in schools,
universities, buses and taxis; and keeping women and men apart at private
parties, in parks and on vacation trips - that give these associations and
organs their raison d'être.
A devastating war
The clerics continued the war with Iraq for eight years, rejecting all peace
proposals, for the simple reason that the war helped them to stay in power.
Through deceit and by taking advantage of the lay people's religious beliefs,
they sent human waves over minefields. Eyewitnesses have reported that mullahs
were present at the warfronts, preaching to prospective victims and telling
them that they would be cleansed of their sins and go to Heaven if they
walked over the mines. The world was shocked to find that boy soldiers as
young as nine and ten years old were among Iranian casualties and POWs.
They carried small plastic keys given to them by the mullahs on the eve
of their human-wave assaults and were invariably told that the keys would
open for them the gates of Paradise, where their sins would be redeemed.
Export of terrorism and fundamentalism
The mullahs whip up this same misogynous hysteria to export their reaction
and terrorism to other countries. Their uneducated, disenchanted foreign
recruits are led to believe that sexual promiscuity is the bottom line of
all democracies, and that their afflictions are caused by the social inclusion
of an evil, seductive being, called woman. Against this backdrop, the recruits
are shown photographs of certain unveiled women to fill them with hatred,
and prepare the grounds for the assassination of working women and journalists.
In 1963, Khomeini asserted that granting women the right to vote would corrupt
society. With this rationale, in the early days of the 1979 revolution the
mullahs' hoodlums attacked the prostitutes in Tehran, set their homes on
fire and stoned them to death. They believed that this was more than a good
deed; it was the most effective, most valuable way to cleanse society.
The sanctity of family
According to Islam and Islamic precepts, a woman owns her body and all her
property. Under the pretext of the sanctity of the family, the reactionaries
consider the man as the owner of his wife's body and life, thus making her
his slave. Under the mullahs, new legislation has been introduced to legalize
this viewpoint. Mullah Mohammad Yazdi, the head of the Judiciary, says it
all: "Your wife, who belongs to you, is in fact your slave..."9
Article 105 of the clerical regime's civil code notes: "In the relationship
between a man and a woman, the man is responsible as head of the family."
The Council of Guardians, the regime's watchdog body - has decreed that
a woman cannot leave her home without her husband's permission, even to
attend her father's funeral. Article 1117 of the civil code states that
the husband may ban his wife from any technical profession that conflicts
with family life or her character. Article 1133 of the civil code states:
A man can divorce his wife whenever he so chooses and does not have to give
her advance notice.
To justify their gender-based ideology, the Iranian clerics try to sell
their reactionary viewpoints and fundamentalist dogma as religious precepts
and Islam. In this way, they forbid women from social activity, particularly
political, social and ideological leadership so as to solidify women's "second
class" standing, portraying it as stemming from women's inherent deficiencies.
Notes:
1. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, interview with Ettela'at, 7 June 1986.
2. Plan on the Rights and Freedoms of Iranian Women, The National Council
of Resistance of Iran, 17 April 1985.
3. Plan on the NCR Relationship with Religion and Denominations, The National
Council of Resistance of Iran, 12 November 1985.
4. Abbas Abbassi, parliamentary deputy, Jomhouri Islami, 8 October 1994.
5. Morteza Motahhari, Nezam-e Hoqouq-e Zan Dar Eslam (The Rights of Women
in Islam), Sadra Publications, Tehran: 1990.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Mohammad Baqer Majlessi, Hayat-ol Qolub (The Life of Hearts).
9. Mohammad Yazdi, Head of the Judiciary, Ressalat, 15 December 1986.