‘ Never have they had any chance to spread their wings ’: The construction of agency and socio-gender identity of Iranian women

Gendered identity and agency

Identity can be defined as a fluid and on-line phenomenon which is constructed, situated and altered through various social interactions and practises (Lakoff, 2006). Lakoff (2006) believes that it is only through the imposition of social interactions and discourses that one decides to delineate his/her identity based on likes, choices and preferences. To put it differently, identity is taken to be a social construct which is the outcome of a dialectic relationship between the subject and society (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). Looking from a sociological window, social structures and norms lie at the bedrock of defining and attributing multiple identities to social subjects (Deaux, 1993). In this sense, identity is seen as constructed by social subjects through their participation in social interactions (Lakoff, 2006) and different realisations of identity such as social and gender identities emerge with the early emblems of a subject’s socialisation processes (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). Therefore, social subjects are perceived as actively, but not necessarily consciously, involved in constructing and giving shape to their identities at different contexts. However, for De Fina (2006), social subjects merely choose and employ socially consolidated resources to manifest their identities through the process of sociation. In this, inasmuch as it concerns social subjects, the acquisition of identity is primarily driven by choice rather than individual construction of identity since, according to De Fina (2006), social subjects actively select and adopt identities that are socially and culturally made available for them in the course of social interactions. Howsoever, what lies at the heart of these two nuanced perspectives is that identity, however adopted or constructed, both manifests itself largely in subjects’ daily discursive practises and also continually re-creates and reconstructs the self in multifarious situations and contexts (Lakoff, 2006).

Identities designate who we are. On the course to do so, identities impose historically and socio-culturally constructed normativity in terms of behavioural patterns and cliché that not only delineate a subject’s self, but also direct his/her social and individual demeanour (Hoang, 2011). Hoang (2011) believes that the perceptions of social subjects regarding legitimate and/or illegitimate behaviours and agencies are strictly predetermined partly by gender-based normativity and corresponding identities. Likewise, Lakoff (1975) holds that in their attempts to acquire a position in social strata or gender order, women are often tended to adopt relatively inferior positions due to the perception of their identity and agency as incompliant with the requirements of occupying power-driven positions. She further adds that the very perception has been permeated into women’s cognition through the disempowerment of women’s language. That is, women’s language lacks the ability to effectively influence and persuade others, defend their positions and independently express their thoughts. Arguable though her position is (see for example Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 2003 for some counterarguments), what glitters in her ideas is that gendered structures and stereotypes, feelings and emotional reactions construct the core of social subjects’ identity and agency (see Lakoff, 1975; 2006).

Accordingly, Bourdieu (2001) maintains that social orders and norms serve as a complicated apparatus seeking to internalise the domination of certain gender identity and related agency, upon which the entirety of the social is constructed. The main idea here is that identity, however gender or social, provides a firm ground for social activism, proposing that the agency of social subjects is deeply influenced by socio-cultural values and/or public culture (Malesevic, 2006). Therefore, the system of social orders leads to the distribution of gender-specific activism and agency as well as the exact distribution of spaces through the role and social-gender structures of identity of subjects (Bourdieu, 2001). Needless to note that such a distribution and also particularisation of identity and agency is practised through intensive interference in everyday facets of subjects’ individual and social activities. As a telling example, Eriksson and Kenalemang (2023) indicate that the rapid development of cosmetic apps delimits women’s perception of their identities to the fragmented and metricised evaluations of their facial appearance. It also directs their agency to get involved with ‘aesthetic labour’ and the unending cycle of consuming the so-called right cosmetic products. The domination of such a zeitgeist amongst women, according to Meyers (2002, p. 8), take root from ‘the embodiment of the aesthetic feminine beauty and the routines of self-beautification in women’s identities.’ Baudrillard (2007) also believes that industries as such have rendered beauty as an absolute necessity for women. Beauty is no longer a nature-given property along with ethical and moral advantages, but a necessary feature for women and a functional exchange value for the industry of beauty.

The symbolic construction of social-historical-economic division and distribution as such extends to the embodiment of social relations and dominance relations, appearing in the guise of natural law (Bourdieu, 2001). The very social programming is internalised within physical and physiological levels through which biological differences turn out to be a bio-politics that define perceptions, worldviews, labour division and legitimate and illegitimate terrains of activism and agency (Bourdieu, 2001). In other words, Bourdieu (2001) believes that the social world defines and categorises the body in terms of a distorted reality as a repertoire of macro and micro perceptions whose definitive logic is defined by gender specificities. To the extent that social subjects internalise such gender idiosyncrasies, they more firmly define the boundaries of their identities (Sczesny et al., 2018). As for example, Sczesny et al. (2018) indicate how gender stereotypes and stereotypical scope of agency constrict our perception of gender roles. In their analyses, women are more tended to be involved with communally-demanding roles whilst men are expected to undertake agentic activism. However, being supported by recent research on the instances of gender inequalities in the time of Covid pandemic, it is clear that these gendered roles are not unlikely to change with the updating life experiences. Reichelt et al. (2021) maintain that ‘gender-roles attitudes might adapt to the lived realities.’ They indicate that Covid-forced changes in the employment relations significantly shifted gender-role attitudes within households due to the division of household labour. Likewise, Czymara et al. (2021) argue that during the Covid-19 pandemic, women’s scope of agency was remarkably affected and gender roles were redefined through significant increase not only in the amount of physical work but also overwhelming level of cognitive work due to being worried about childcare.

The dialectic relationship as such between social structures and norms and social-gender identities, agencies and roles, builds upon particular justifications and institutionalisations that are programmed to further subjugate the people (Bourdieu, 2001). However, it has to be noted that the very dialectic relationship facilitates the perception of heterogeneity between social-gender identities and the scope of agency and authority (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). This antagonistic perception, if we could call it so, is realised in the form of resistance-oriented construction of identity. For Fukuyama (2018), the resistance of this type, in its modern definition, is evolved to be a politics of identity through which social subjects demand overt recognition of their values and credits. Fukuyama (2018) adds that in the present politics of identity, there is a kind of resistance-oriented movements that the marginalised groups of society are endeavouring to verify and authenticate equal status and recognition. To put it differently, rather than striving for collective struggles and class-based antagonism, today, marginalised social groups and communities mainly demand explicit acknowledgement and recognition of their values and rights in socio-political contexts (Fukuyama, 2018). Given all these, the resistance-oriented politics of identity is featured with two interlocking facets: on the one hand, it recognises and challenges the existing forms and instances of social injustice. On the other hand, it puts forth various strategies for reclaiming, redefining or transforming stigmatised accounts of group membership (see Heyes, 2002). By positioning identity at the heart of such social movements, it does not mean that poor financial status and inferior economic class have become totally irrelevant in triggering the marginalised to solicit recognition and equal value. Rather the issue of economic interests of taking up resistance-oriented movements have turned out to be overshadowed by concerns related to identity and social status (see Fukuyama, 2018; Heyes, 2002). Such a prioritisation stands for the idea that certain social groups or communities such as women are oppressed and marginalised due to ascribed identities and social-cultural recognition, cultural imperialism (i.e. stereotyping, erasure or appropriation of their group identity), violence, exploitation or powerlessness (Eckert and McConnel-Ginet, 2003).

Social-gender identities as well as il/legitimate scope of agency is a prime ground for the ignition of political struggles for domination in societies. This issue is talk of the town in the Middle East. This is mainly because on the one hand women’s stereotypical identities and agencies are tightly knitted to religious doctrines and reconstructions, and, on the other hand, religious contents are bestowed with political significance. Therefore, the reformulations and transformation of women’s identity structures not only brings about religious oppositions but also becomes politicised and turns out to be an area for the manifestation of political confrontations. Ilkkaracan (2002) indicates that in the Middle Eastern nations, different political actors struggle for redefining women’s social-gender identities with or without the accounts of religious codes. Thus said, while modernists have largely advocated for gender equality and sexual liberation, traditionalists and Islamic conservatives have legalised their ideologies to exert on juridical control over women’s identity and agency in order to preserve interpretations of society’s religious and moral values. IIkkaracan (2008) maintains that the very struggles for power and domination affects women’s status, identity and scope of agency and authority in the family and social-gender relationships.

The politicisation of women’s social-gender identity and agency has also led to gender inequality in education (see Lagerlöf, 2003; Klasen and Lamanna, 2009). Assaad et al. (2019) indicates that due to the intervention of political structures and religious backgrounds, girls are given less school enrollment opportunity in certain Middle Eastern nations such as Egypt, Iraq and Yemen.

Hijab has always been an important factor in constructing and/or emphasising women’s identity (see Ameli and Merali, 2006; Croucher, 2008; Hopkins and Greenwood, 2013; Kulenović, 2006). Besides, Hijab and its different realisations in societies bear political significance (see Koo and Han, 2018; Mohammadi, 2016). For instance, Palestinian women employ Hijab for political justifications. According to Alayan and Shehadeh (2021), Palestinian women wear Hijab in the West Bank, where there are tense interactions and encounters with occupiers and Israeli soldiers. This is whilst in the East Jerusalem, Hijab is taken as a means of representing Islamic identity and resilience. However, in Iran, refusing to abide by the compulsory Hijab codes, widely known as Bad-Hijabi (inappropriate veiling) in the dominant political literature, finds itself in women’s resistance to mandatory and state-forced regulations for women’s social activism (Mohammadi, 2016). Bayat et al. (2023) also indicate that Iranian women with inappropriate veiling endeavour to make up for mandatory limitations on the expression of the self through appearance, as well as to dissociate themselves from messages conveyed by Hijab

The studies we reviewed in this section give a clear account of various strategies and mechanisms through which (socio-gender) identity and scope of agency are constructed and naturalised. These studies also explicate how power is reproduced and practised through practising various identities and agencies at social levels. Nevertheless, despite the remarkable implications of such scholarly works to the literature of identity studies, we still need to allocate much more space to the investigation of critical and self-recognitional perspectives of social subjects towards the construction and evolution of the structures, strategies and mechanisms that formulate women’s socio-gender identity and scope of agency in Middle Eastern countries, including Iran. What adds to the significance of this study is the fact that in Middle Eastern countries, such as Iran, religious doctrines and re-interpretations play a pivotal role in the construction of socio-gender identity and scope of agency; therefore, scrutinising and rethinking the issue of socio-gender identity and agency in such nations may unveil not only political but also religious mechanisms and processes of women’s socio-gender identity construction and agency designation. Given the considerations, the present paper intends to examine the narratives of Iranian citizens so as to figure out the structures, mechanisms and strategies that construct women’s identity and scope of agency.

Positive discourse analysis: Voicing the oppressed

To talk about Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA) independently without given due account and credence to its critical twin (Critical Discourse Studies) would stifle us from obtaining reliable knowledge on the epistemological, theoretical and analytical properties of PDA. Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) is an interdisciplinary approach to the critical study of language use in service of power. In van Dijk’s terms (van Dijk, 2001), CDS intends to reveal how dominant groups and institutions abuse social power, exert on domination, enact and reproduce inequality and prejudice. CDS’s ambitious goal is also to understand, expose and ultimately resist social inequality and power abuse (Bartlett, 2012). In CDS, understanding and investigating how power and power relations are practised play a pivotal role in looking critically at different discourses. For CDS practitioners, power is seen as ‘ubiquitous in society and elites may maintain control through their exercise of power’ (Flowerdew and Richardson, 2018, pp. 3–4). Power, in this sense, is seen as a systematic principle and order which functions as a suppressive and repressive instrument. The very perception of power prevents CDS, according to Luke (2002), from dealing with other forms of discourses that are associated with subaltern and minorities. To put it differently, CDS in its current status, is blind to the productive facet of power (see Bartlet, 2012, 2018; Hughes, 2018; Luke, 2002) that instigate and orchestrate bottom-up change in different social contexts (see Martin, 2012).

Unlike CDS, the conception of power and power relations in Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA) is enriched with the Foucauldian position on power. In this, there are no power relations without moments of resistance (see Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982). It can be argued that these moments account for certain changes in the recurrent and dominant status of the social and proposing alternatives for the future. In this connection, Kress (2000) maintains that the task of the critic has to be built upon how the future can be constructed grounded upon alternative means, resources and power relations. Martin (2004), thus, holds that that the overall orientation of PDA can be summarised in terms of shifting away from deconstructing dominant discourses and recurrent social normativity towards ‘the design of emancipatory alternatives’ (p. 9). However, insisting upon the positive and productive facet of power does not means that the critical examination and deconstruction of the existing forms of domination and power abuse are totally in vain. Rather, Martin (2004) adds that critique has to shed light on negative and repressive aspects of power, power abuse and social inequality as well as the constructive activities and practises that propose alternative ways of being and encourages social changes. In this sense, PDA analysis, according to Bartlett (2012), is ‘reactive’; that is to say, it deals with certain discourses and discourse practises that resist the hegemonic social, political structures and discourses affiliated with them. To put it differently, according to Stibbe (2014, p. 117), PDA is

‘. . .questioning the stories that underpin our current unsustainable civilisation, exposing those stories that are clearly nor working, that are leading to ecological destruction and social justice, and finding new stories that work better in the conditions of the world that we face.’

By and large, PDA encourages reorientation in critical thinking to social subjects’ certain discursive practises that may give way to some bottom-up changes in society and ‘make the world a better place’ (Bartlett, 2018, p. 133). Given these, PDA calls for thinking politically about social, political and economic areas but also setting alternative agendas for the future (see Kress, 2000; Luke, 2002).

In this paper, PDA enables us to indicate how giving voice to discourses on women and the depiction of their statuses in Iran will question the naturalised gendered categorisations, identification and judgements. Supposedly, providing a prone discourse space for narrating the processes of the construction of women’s gendered identity and agency would not only challenges the existing dominant social-cultural-political structures, but, more importantly, also encourages social subjects to rethink and rearticulate their identity, agency and social status in alternative ways.

Method

The data for the present study comes from 35 semi-structured interviews with Iranian male and female citizens who were advocates of reformative processes in women’s status in the context of Zan-Zendegi-Azadei movement. The interviews were conducted between November and January, 2022, a time when nation-wide protests were calling for wide-ranging reformations to the State-governed policies and measures on women’s status. Respondents included both women and men and were between 24 and 40 years of age. We approached both men and women so that we can have access to differential and cross-gender views and insights of the entirety of the society on women’s status and their problems in Iranian society.

The interviews were scheduled in advance to be conducted at different places such as universities, cafés and parks for security reasons. We used open-ended semi-structured schedule which covered various aspects of the respondents’ experience in Iran, including their perception of women’s status and problems in social, cultural and political context in Iran (see the appendix for the interview questions). For the purpose of fine-grained interpretation, all interviews were audio-reordered and then transcribed. It is important to note that the interviews were all conducted in Farsi and then translated into English by the authors. To ensure the anonymity of participants, numbers were used (eg. Participant 1).

In this study, analysis involved coding system that identified instances when the participants widely problematised the status, agency, socio-gender identity of women and construed what the problematics were and through what processes problems emerged and evolved. The main tenets of Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA) were recruited to analyse the discursive repertoire the participants employed to negotiate and represent women’s multifaceted agency and socio-gender identity.

Unequal social and political status with men

The interview discourse indicates that the discursive and socio-political contexts in Iran at the grassroots fail to recognise women with equal status to men, for instance as noted in [1]: ‘. . .the civil rights of women are given less value. . . .’ In other words, Iranian society is characterised with patriarchal aura as well as the endowment with underlying suppressive socio-political and cultural capitals wherein often-implicit and naturalised inequality and suppressive measures are extensively practised against women, as it is highlighted by participants [1] and [2]: ‘. . .there is a dominant petrified framework which rises the power of men while suppressing women. . .’ [1]; ‘. . .The Islamic Republic has always wished to restrict women to houses. . .’ [2].

In the interview discourse, participants [1] and [2] represent the unequal status of women as practised through their restricted access to the fundamental civil and personal rights. For example, as noted by participant [1], women are represented as having limited agency in practising their basic civil rights in connection with divorce, marriage, traveling abroad and working: (‘. . .here, in Iran, the civil rights of women are given less value; . . .. the right to divorce, the marriage rights, travelling abroad, working rights, are all under the control of men. . .’). This restriction gives women a subordinate position, preventing them to construct an independent social and gender identity and social status both at social and familial relations. The condition as such can be implied by the construal of women’s under-control agency in regard with realising and exercising their basic rights (‘. . .are all under the control of men. . .’ [1]). Pointing out the lopsided power relations in society between men and women, the very construals imply that women in Iran are not recognised as rightful entities to practise certain instances of freedom that can position them on an equal par with men. To put it differently, by way of implication, it seems that the pent-up position of women in Iran’s society is not defined to enjoy these rights and liberties, but rather their agency is granted with limited shares of freedom which are stipulated to men’s control and observation. This construal implies that women are defined with submissive gender and social identities and controlled agency in the prevalent social-cultural-political context.

Restricted agency and confined being

The interview discourse also discusses the two ways through which the submissive gender and social identities and controlled agency of women are largely practised through rendering the body of women as the object of exercising power.

As it is held by participant [2], the physical aspect of women's being has been rendered into a site of practising power through which women’s bodies become an instrument to curb their agency (‘. . .. The Islamic Republic tried to dominate and constrict the body of women. . .’). Accordingly, given the constriction of women’s social agency, the exertion of domination over the bodies of women (their physical being) indicates that the topology of practising power extends from social-individual agencies of women to their physical being. This is manifestly realised in the obligation of wearing hijab in all public places (‘. . .Mandatory hijab is a good example for this. . .’ [2]). In addition to the constricting power of hijab, women’s activism is largely confined by defining the house as the primary locus for women to practise their family-related agency (‘. . .The Islamic Republic has always wished to restrict women to houses. . .’ [2]). Thus, it can be argued that the overall existence of a woman, including her identity and agency, is observed and controlled. Secondly, participant [3] stated that the alleged restriction is further implemented as the physical being of women is metaphorically conceptualised as an under-threat zone whose entirety has to be protected (‘. . .women are seen as chocolate bars who have to be properly covered so as to protect them from infections and pollutions. . .’). In this connection, Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (2020) maintains that the predominant Islamic discourse on women considers their social activities and even their out-of-the-house presence as a raison d’etre of all crises and corruption of new generation. These construals give away the physical aspects of women as a threat-inducing space whose safety rests upon the confidentiality of the physical being of women. This confidentiality suppresses and deauthorises women of having any claim on the ownership on their bodies. Moreover, the pretext of protection from seldom-noticed dangers provides the authority with enough argumentative grounds to justify and legitimise the exertion of suppressive and exclusionary measures against women. Likewise, Abu Zayd (2020) believes that the idea of safeguarding the family, which is threatened by women’s occupation out of the house, is apparently the most available pretext of the predominant discourse to confine women at houses.

Unauthorised parenthood

Depriving women of an equal social status is further recognised in the problem of authenticating women with rights to be regarded as a rightful parent of their kids.

This argument rises from the fact that father’s name is always mentioned as the only parent in all formal and governmental documents except the birth certificate (called Shenasname). In the interview discourse, it is noted that the very right has never been granted to women (‘. . .never have they had. . .’; ‘never are their names recorded in any list. . .’ [4]). Arguably, this lacking status seems to indicate the systematic position of women in Iranian social-cultural-political structures. In other words, it points out that women's deprivation has been systematically enforced by governmental and administrative structures.

Inequality in the allocation of inheritance property

The problem of not identifying women as equal with men in governmental documents compounds with the problem of inheritance in Islamic laws which is thoroughly followed in Iran’s legal and judiciary system.

Participant [5] refers to the issue of property inheritance in Islamic laws in which women are granted with a share of half of a man (‘. . .women are granted with half of what a man inherits of properties. . .’). The important point here is that the inequality in allocating inheritance to women is perceived as being on a par with ascribing inferior existential and human values to women (‘. . .This system never identifies women as equal with men. . .’ [5]). The inferior position serves as the underpinning reason explaining why women receive unequal inheritance. To put it differently, the inequality in ascribing inheritance stands for the perception that the ontological status, social position and demands and desires of women are all peripheral. This status signposts how women’s socio-gender identity is inferiorated by construing them as peripheral entities who require less property than men (‘. . .I wonder who has said that women need less but men need a lot. . .’ [5]).

Inferiorated capacities and potentials

The inferior position of women is not solely instantiated in constructing their positions and needs as peripheral to men. But rather, the inferioration continues with questioning women’s inherent capacities and features to take certain job positions.

In Iran, owing to the Islamic rules and doctrines, the relationship between gender and socio-political and religious roles and positions has always been one of the challenging issues. As for instance, participant [6] maintained that the predominant discourse in Iran refuses to qualify women as competent candidates to take the judiciary positions of judge (‘. . .. you are a woman who has the right to study law, but you cannot be a judge. . .’). The very disqualification extends to taking religious position of Marja’ (religious authority) and political position of president by women. As participant [6] puts forth, the main justification for this comes from a so-called particular psychological and mental feature of women that make women unable and incompetent in the process of decision making (‘. . .the government believes that women are sentimental and emotional and they cannot make fair decisions. . .’). Similarly, there are plethora of arguments – derived from Hadith, Quranic verses and juridical reasoning – in support of considering women as unlicensed parties to take the positions. By and large, these resources maintain that women are endowed with natural biological and psychological properties/features that have made them incompetent to take certain responsibilities (for detailed discussion see Izadi-Fard and Kaviyar, 2013; Sajjadi-Amin, 2018). Putting emphasis upon inherent psychological and mental properties of women is liable to reproduce and naturalise two major consequences: on the one hand, women are inherently and instinctively identified as incompetent and inferior than men, who are endowed with in-born qualifications to take any sorts of responsibilities. On the other hand, women are largely seen as in need of being cared and supervised due to their psychological-mental features that make them unable to make important decisions.

Overwhelmed by old traditions

The view that women lack the required capacities to undertake judiciary, religious and political responsibilities has seemingly permeated into the micro social and cultural layers of Iranian society.

Participant [7] holds that women have not been allowed to be involved with important and crucial affairs related to family. As s/he notes, it appears that the system of roles and responsibilities as well as the scope of authority and agency in Iranian families, at least in some of them, is organised in a hierarchical structure in which women are prevented from intervening in affairs that are exclusivised to the authority and agency scope of men (‘. . .When it comes to performing important affairs, women are automatically excluded and you can hear sayings such as women must not involve themselves in these things, these are manly things. . .’). Absolutising men and women to undertaking specified gender-based chores and actions, this hierarchised model of authority division in families pinpoints the cultural cognition of a society wherein the prejudice and inferioration of women is largely practised. Therefore, in this discourse, the hierarchical structure as such defines and shapes the agency and social-gender identity of women in terms of being confined to kitchen, doing household chores, giving birth and breeding children (‘. . .In the view of these people, women are only supposed to do house-hold chores and breed children. . .’ [7]).

The confinement of women’s scope of authority and agency to mundane affairs within the house not only defines and shapes the identity of women in general, but also enfranchises a system of valuation that reproduces and strengthens the existing stereotypical gender roles and responsibilities, as it is held by participant [8]: ‘. . .. women are generally assessed and judged by affairs that are related to house-hold chores: cooking, cleaning and managing house affairs. These are counted as values for women. . ..’ To put it differently, the scope of women’s authority and agency provides evaluative items to the valuation system according to which the woman-hood of a woman as well as her capacities and qualifications are judged by the traditional social structures. Interestingly, this valuation system is sedimented so deep at the socio-cultural cognition that refuses to allow changes to the basic and traditional scope of women’s authority and agency even in the face of certain cultural updates and ideological shifts, as participant [8] notes: (‘. . .It is true that nowadays education and occupation are counted as value for women but. . . the old items of valuation are still regarded as determining features. . .’ [8]). In other words, the use of disclaimer (‘. . .education and occupation are counted as values but the old values. . .’) shows that the new values such as education and occupation are considered as marginal to the old ones. Besides, as participant (8) implies, the new items of valuation are utilitarianistically treated; that is to say, the positive valuation of women’s agency and activism outside the traditionally prescribed territory (i.e. house) is stipulated to the viability of the positive results that it brings about (‘. . .the new items are valued positively only when women recruit her education and occupation to cooperate with a man in fulfilling the well-being of the family. . .’ [8]). Given all these, we can argue that what remains intact both in the marginality of women’s new scope of authority and agency and utilitarianistic treatment of their agency is the lopsided power relations between men and women. The arguments in support of this claim run as follows: firstly, the marginality of the new scopes of authority and agency gives priority and supremacy to the old ones; therefore, in case the old and new scopes get into an uncompromising conflict of interest, it is the new scope that is expected to be sacrificed to the best of the old ones (‘. . .the old items of valuation are still regarded as determining features and you are always expected to be a good mother, a good wife. . .’ [8]). This view is in line with the reactionary discourse believing that women’s involvement with both its traditional and modern scopes of authority and agency causes anxiety and has negative impacts on all members of the family (Abu Zayd, 2020). Accordingly, in this discourse, as Nasr Abu Zayd (2020) reports, the first and foremost function of women is motherhood and the cultivation of good citizens. Secondly, insofar as women’s right and permission to have a job, for instance, has to be granted by men, therefore, women’s new agencies and identities are largely bound to the will of men (‘. . .the new items are valued positively only when women recruit her education and occupation to cooperate with a . . . Otherwise, they are harshly criticised. . .’ [8]). In either case, women’s subordination to men is warranted and enlivened by the force of unequal power relations.

The legacy of history or a gift from Mullahs?

With the elaboration of women’s social, cultural and political statuses as well as the unequal power relations between men and women, it might be too hasty and reductionist a conclusion to argue that the repressed and pent-up situation of women is completely and willfully brought about by the way men manage and control women’s individual, familial and social roles and agency. To get a clear view of this, we need to examine how repressive measures against women have been evolved and what influential factors are involved in reproducing, redistributing and reinforcing this situation.