Katy Greene
February 13th, 2009
In Iran, many women are beginning to demand equal rights from the government. Male supremacy is considered part of the legal code in Iran, and women have traditionally been expected to obey their husbands in all matters. However, now one in five marriages in Iran end in divorce ,which would have been unheard of twenty years ago. Women of all social classes and religious backgrounds have begun to demand divorces from abusive husbands. They are also demanding custody of their children, as the current law says that if the child is over the age of seven, the father recieves custody.
Higher levels of education and more outside information have led to the demand for equal rights. Many women have turned to higher education to escape their opressive homes, which since the Islamic Revolution have been segregated. Over sixty percent of college students are women, which is vastly different from the thirty percent in 1982.Because of access to satellite television, Iranian women have begun to see what women in other area of the world live like, and that it is possible to be considered your husbands equal. Many protest groups have arisen over the past several years, many of which include men.
I think that it is very courageous of the Iranian women to demand equal treatment. The government has begun to respond to their demands, however they refuse to grant them entire equality. I think that the government needs to recognize the equality of the women who are protesting, and lessen the punishments for women who disobey the strict rules of the Islamic regime.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/world/middleeast/13iran.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=world
2 comments:
I agree with you in that it is courageous what many Iranian women are doing, fighting an oppressive regime like the one in Iran is never an easy thing to do. However, it will be a long time before it will be considered a norm throughout Iran and the Muslim world to give women equal status to men, as they interpret their Sharia law to give men much more authority than women. Even now in the West, we still have some work to do before women will be given equal status as men universaly in society.
It's interesting to know that Iranian women have been observing women in other countries. Surely they have dreamt of being equal or imagined what it would have been like. Maybe now that they see that other people are living their dream it gives them even more hope to pursue it.
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