The Idea of an Essay, Volume 2

65 After 1936, when Reza Shah banned the chador, veiling came to be perceived among the minority of elite and secular middle-class women as a symbol of oppression… Iranian society was already polarized between the traditionally minded majority and a minority of involved women who were dedicated to improving the status of women. (Curtis) Because of The White Revolution, by 1978, “22 women sat in parliament and 333 women served on elected local councils. One- third of university students were female. Two million women were in the work force, more than 146,000 of them in the civil service” (Wright). As a response, however, another revolution formed. This revolution of 1979 is known as “The Iranian Revolution,” or sometimes, “The Islamic Revolution.” During this time, Reza Shah Pahlavi was overthrown, in an attempt to combat the “liberalism” of previous years and reestablish fundamentals of Islam. The revolution was primarily lead by two theorists, Ayatollah Khomeini and Ali Shari’ati. “Shari’ati drew on a Shi’a model of womanhood to highlight women’s central role as daughters, wives, and mothers” (Sameh). This model was a gentle way of pushing women out of positions of power and back into the kitchen and home. Both leaders were passionate about reversing the secularization that the Pahlavi era had brought and returning to Islamic tradition. Khomeini gained an immense following and eventually gained enough influence to be the face of the revolution. Surprisingly, many women supported the revolution, being persuaded by Khomeini’s charisma and desire to establish Iran’s identity. He often said that under the Shah’s regime, Iran was a “puppet of the United States” (Wright). Haideh Moghissi, current Islam and Gender Project Director and founder of the Iranian National Union of Women, wrote in retrospect: We had failed to listen carefully to Khomeini’s rhetorical pronouncements that the new government would provide women with all rights denied to them, ‘within the confines of the Shari’a [Islamic Law].’ The meaning was crystal clear. However, the dominance of populist, anti-imperaialist