Every day I get a round-up of stories on Muslim women from Google. It makes my researching existence much easier to handle when Google does it for me. Today my daily digest delivered an article from Britain’s Telegraph entitled: “What will become of Iran’s ’stiletto revolution’?”
<insert my mouth making a gaping hole of despair>
Clearly I missed something in the last few days as true to form, US media abandoned real news for the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. Actually, as I think about it, this is probably a good thing for Iranians because the Iranian government can ease their censorship and well, right now they would look fairly ridiculous blaming the United States unless protesters start moon walking through Tehran. But I digress…
Over the last two weeks, the media have been producing articles daily on the participation of women in the protests over the Presidential election results and friends have been re-posting these articles to share. What started as a novel observation of the participants in the protests exploded with the death of the now iconic Neda, murdered in the streets on her way to a music lesson. The media has repeatedly ignored the precedent for women’s participation not only in Islamic history, but also in the 1979 revolution where women took to the streets and employed chador to protest the Shah’s ban on veiling and in support of an Islamic state. No one seems to remember the Sisters of Zahra who act as the morality police in Iran nor do they mention the work of Shirin Ebadi. Instead, they insist on the novely of women’s participation by writing about the wonder of women taking to the streets, illustrating articles on the protests with pictures of glamorous women in headscarves holding rocks, hair showing, and fighting besides men.
Yes, women are citizens of Iran.
Ooooo…
Women are citizens, too. Why is this such a difficult concept to wrap our heads around? The West is fixated on the idea that women in the Islamic World, whether they be Iranian, Afghan, Egyptian, Algerian, or Saudi are controlled by men. (Um, aren’t we all?) The control is illustrated no longer by the 19th century image of the harem, but by implying that there is a sort of social harem, created by men through a social framework that controls and subverts women’s agency. This is certainly true to a certain extent, but this occurs in this country as well, why is it so fascinating to the West? Is it the veil? Is it the idea of a sexual rebellion in the harem culture? What is it that makes it so fascinating? It is fascinating because the image of Muslim women that is endemic in the West is that of the oppressed, the downtrodden, the abused: the odalisque with the rounded belly and doting eunuch. The West cannot wrap its mind around the notion of women’s citizenship and the agency of citizenship in the Muslim world.
The Telegraph calls women’s participation in the protests the “Stiletto Revolution.” What does that even mean? In 1979 women wore chadors to protest the Shah and now, thirty years later in 2009 women are wearing stilettos to protest the Islamic regime? Basically we need to make sure that Iranian women are contextualized according to Western agency: wearing crippling, yet stylish, heels to claw their way to their rights as citizens and agents of change. Charming. Is the wardrobe of the revolution really that important? I suppose. The chador in 1979 was a great mobilizer, however I fail to see how stilettos are going to do the same in 2009 unless, as I assume, there is an effort to invoke the youthful protesters and the desire to open dialogue with the West. Stilettos are not going to get us there. I promise.
It is degrading to compartmentalize Iranian women participating in the protests as members of the ‘Stiletto Revolution.’ Instead of allowing them to be citizens of the nation and agents for sweeping change, and yes, that includes gender reform, the West separated them and re-defined their citizenship. Instead of allowing them the citizenship rights guaranteed to them by Islam, the Western media is guaranteeing them the citizenship given to them by the Velayat-e-Feqh: citizens, but certainly not equal. What Iranian women are doing on the streets is demonstrating their citizenship and manifesting their political agency as citizens. This is not about Iranian women’s rights. These women are fighting with their male peers for the soul of a nation. To call it the ‘Stiletto Revolution’ is utterly ridiculous. It undermines and devalues women’s citizenship.
The revolution on the streets of Tehran is not a feminist movement. It is a push by the citizens of Iran, regardless of gender, for the democracy that the Iranian constitution promises them and that the government failed to deliver. To separate women from this process is to trivialize their role, or as a friend of mine always says, it truly is “orientalizing” women. This is not a revolt in the harem: it is men and women as a collective citizenry fighting for what they believe is right, not women with bleached blonde hair and lipgloss throwing rocks.
