Iranian Women

This year, it seems that many are planning to celebrate March 8th across the country, thorough street action or protests or just by holding seminars.   We will try to post info about some of these events as they come to us. Following is one action being planned by young women activists.

A group of young activists will be distributing this two-sided postcard to Iranian women in the public space. On one side the postcard has a drawing the other side outlines some of the pressing demands of the women’s movement and the discriminations they face.

The post card has been published on the internet and other women activists are encouraged to print and distribute the postcards on March 8th.   In fact the Iranian women’s movement has a long history of reaching out to citizens in the public sphere, informing them of the problems facing women because of legal or cultural discrimination and engaging them in discussions about women’s rights.  It’s nice to see that the tradition of hitting the streets on this day has continued and that younger women’s movement activists in Iran also feel inspired to talk about their demands with the public.

The post card stresses some of the following points:

• Economic violence and discrimination set the stage for other forms of violence against women. 
• 87% of women have no place in the workforce. When they do enter the workforce their employers taking advantage of the laws that support them can prevent women from advancing.
• We women should not stay silent in the face of factors that weaken us and treat us unjustly.
• We women need to understand that we are equal to others and we have to strive to ensure that our rights are respected.
• We women need to know that our wages need to be just and reflective of the work we do.
• We women should not allow anyone to take us for granted and overlook our strengths.
• We women need to know that we should have the right to equal employment opportunities. 
• We women have to know that we have been denied our most basic rights, such as the right to choose how we dress, the right to exit the country without permission of our husbands, rights to our own bodies, the right to enter stadiums, the right to child custody,  divorce, marriage without the permission of our fathers and many other rights.
• We women must realize that we should not be reduced to the private realm of the home, to doing only housework and to rearing children. With division of labor within the home, we should create circumstances that allow us to realize our goals and that help us grow.