Women and Equality in Iran: Law, Society and Activism

(Paperback)

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Iran's continued retention of discriminatory laws stands in stark contrast to the advances Iranian women have made in other spheres since the Revolution in 1979. Leila Alikarami here aims to determine the extent to which the actions of women's rights activists have led to a significant change in their legal status. She argues that while Iranian women have not yet obtained legal equality, the gender bias of the Iranian legal system has been successfully challenged and has lost its legitimacy. More pertinently, the social context has become more prepared to accommodate legal rights for women. Highlighting the key challenges that proponents of gender equality face in the Muslim context, Alikarami attempts to ascertain the causes of Iran's failure to ratify the CEDAW and questions whether and to what extent interpretations of Islamic principles prevent Iran from doing so. Applying feminist legal theory to contemporary Iran, Alikarami's approach re-evaluates the underlying principles that have shaped the struggle for equal rights between the sexes.

Reviews

Women and Equality in Iran has all the hallmarks of a seminal work. Leila Alikarimi has managed to apply scholarship and feminist theory through her personal experience of gender discrimination and command of legal frameworks to produce an insightful and gripping account. The result is a captivating book that examines how the women movement in Iran has campaigned for change, for the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and for adopting legal protection for women by appealing to a less-patriarchal reading of Islam. * British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies *
Alikaramis work is significant, offering as it does a pragmatic strategy for achieving greater gender equality for Iranian women. * Gender & Development *

Author Bio

Leila Alikarami holds a PhD from SOAS. She is a practicing lawyer and human rights activist who grew up in Tehran, where she completed her legal training with Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi in Tehran. Since 2001, Alikarami has focused on women's and children's rights and in 2009 she accepted the RAW in War (Reach All Women in War) Anna Politkovskaya Award on behalf of the women of Iran and the One Million Signatures campaign.