Iranian women denounce “the sacralized patriarchy through the veil”

A month after the death of Mahsa Amini, the revolt against the compulsory veil is not weakening in Iran. Driven by women but also supported by men from all social classes, this struggle is reminiscent of that of the first Muslim feminists who came to light at the beginning of the 20th century. Maintenance. It is a highly subversive act. By burning their veils, by taking over the public space bareheaded, Iranian women are rising up against the Islamic Republic a little more each day. The death of Mahsa Amini has become a catalyst for those who refuse to put a handkerchief on their rights and denounce a totalitarian theocratic power. The revolt against compulsory veiling is not new. For many years, Iranian women have opposed the control of their bodies. Masih Alinejad, an Iranian activist exiled in the United States since 2009, has launched several campaigns against the hijab on social networks: in 2014, “My furtive freedom”, in 2017 “White Wednesdays”. In 2018, around 30 women were arrested for removing their veils. According to the Tehran police, they had disturbed “social order”. More #women in Tehran courageously protesting the compulsory veil. Women are driving change in #Iran
From left to right: enghelab street. Enghelab Street, Ferdoussi Street, Vali-Asr Street pic.twitter.com/7tbiRpI930— csdhi.org (@CSDHI) January 29, 2018 Has the refusal of the veil become the banner of Iranian feminism? For Leïla Tauil, lecturer at the University of Geneva (Arabic Unit) and associate member of the Interdisciplinary Center for Studies of Islam in the Contemporary World (UCL), like many Muslim feminists throughout history , Iranian women contest a social order based on a “patriarchal” foundation and a “sacredness of the veil”. France 24: Is the revolt against compulsory veiling in Iran feminist? Leïla Tauil: It’s a spontaneous protest movement led by women committed to the egalitarian values ​​held by feminists. He challenges the sacralized patriarchy through the veil. The challenge to the veil appeared with the establishment of the Islamic Republic by Ayatollah Khomeini. On March 8, 1979, thousands of Iranian women demonstrated bareheadedly against this obligation. It was a feminist act. What is feminism? It is to want total equality between the sexes. However, the Islamic veil is a feminine dress constraint that aims to domesticate the body of women. They must cover themselves from puberty, while men can move freely without being subject to any clothing restrictions. The veil is also a powerful tool for controlling their sexuality: any physical contact with the opposite sex is prohibited outside of marriage. Men, on the other hand, can enjoy a certain sexual freedom with polygamy, particularly in Iran where, with temporary marriage (between 1 am and 99 years), they can have sexual relations with an unlimited number of women. Does this revolt resemble the unveilings that followed one another in the 20th century in Iran and the Maghreb? The first Arab and Iranian feminists appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. Committed to women’s political rights, access to education but also against colonialism, they all oppose veiling. At the time, it was a social veil, devoid of religious connotation: haik in Algeria and Morocco, sefseri in Tunisia. With the Nahda, the Arab renaissance, religious reformists open to modernist values ​​criticized the veiling of women. Sediqeh Dowlatabadi, Iranian feminist pioneer [elle dirige le premier magazine féminin à partir de 1919, NDLR], publicly militates bareheaded. In 1923, it was the Egyptian Huda Sharawi, president of the Egyptian Feminist Union; then in the 1930s, the Tunisian Bchira Ben Mrad and the Moroccan Malika El Fassi, the Algerian mujahedeen like Djamila Bouhired… All transgressed patriarchal norms by committing themselves publicly without veil. They contest this cultural patriarchy which imposes the social veiling of women. In 1979, the advent of the Islamic Republic inaugurated globalized Islamism. It is based on the veiling of women and their sacralized inferiority. Social, family, legal and political inferiority. In Iran and Afghanistan, veiling is imposed by power; in Egypt and Algeria, by the company. Islamist activism disseminates the thesis of the compulsory veil on a large scale, basing itself on an argument of religious authority to control women’s bodies and at the same time instrumentalise them as standard-bearers of their ideology. Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia… could the revolt of the Iranian women inspire, in the more or less long term, a feminist spring? To burn the veil is to openly challenge Islamism and state Islam, which confirms gender inequality. These heroic women can be role models and the starting point for a stronger transnational female protest. This subversive act can inspire all those who experience legal inferiority: marital authority, polygamy, inheritance inequality. There have been very active feminist movements for decades in the Arab world that could claim a secularized or secular democratic state based on the separation of powers and the guarantee of individual freedoms and sexual rights. Arab-Muslim educated youth, often thirsty for freedom and democracy, are connected to the world via the Internet. It is a powerful force that can become a source of social transformation. Do you consider the veil to be a religious obligation? In the Koran, only two verses out of 6,236 allude to women’s clothing without ever mentioning the hair to be covered. “Prophet, tell your wives, your daughters, the wives of believers to put on their cloaks (jalabîbihinna), a sure way to be recognized and to escape any offense. God is all indulgence, Merciful.” (Surah 33, verse 59). “And tell the believing women to lower their gaze, to keep their chastity, and to show their finery only as it appears and that they draw back their veil (khumurihinna) on their chests.” (Surah 24, verse 31) When we study the Koranic exegetes of medieval theologians, the veil is a sign of distinction between free women, who are summoned to wear it, and slaves, forced to remove it. The Islamists have managed a tour de force by transforming a veil of social distinction into a religious obligation for all women. The objective is to dominate, to domesticate their body and to instrumentalize it as the standard-bearer of their project of society based on a religious and patriarchal morality. They associate the veiled woman with the Muslim maid. The foundation of the veil is clearly patriarchal. Also, neither the Old Testament, nor the Gospels, nor the Koran speak of the veiling of the head. It was the moralists and theologians, of the three monotheisms combined, who invented this feminine dress constraint. By burning their veils, the Iranian women pose a highly subversive act. They contest a veiling made sacred by Islamism.