Low income islamist women and social economy in iran

Contents 2 Social Economy and Women in Iran 7 3 Women’s Role in the Political Economy: An Overview 17 4 Islamist, Islamic and Muslim Women 35 5 Informal Networks of Religious Women a

ISLAMIST WOMEN AND SOCIAL

ECONOMY IN IRAN

Roksana Bahramitash, Atena Sadegh and Negin Sattari

Economy in Iran

Roksana Bahramitash • Atena Sadegh

Negin SattariLow-Income Islamist Women and Social Economy in Iran

ISBN 978-1-137-52538-3 ISBN 978-1-137-52539-0 (eBook)

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Contents

2 Social Economy and Women in Iran 7

3 Women’s Role in the Political Economy: An Overview 17

4 Islamist, Islamic and Muslim Women 35

5 Informal Networks of Religious Women and Social

© The Author(s) 2018

R Bahramitash et al., Low-Income Islamist Women and Social

Economy in Iran, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52539-0_1

Introduction

Abstract This chapter starts with a review of literature on the topic of the

social solidarity economy (sometimes referred to as the third sector), the pros and cons of this safety net—particularly in the case of Iran—as well as the importance of recognizing its existence despite challenges In this book the topic of the social economy focuses on women of low-income households and examines the role of religion With a trend towards the decline of the welfare state and rise in economic hardship, partly due to government mismanagement of the economy, partly due to sanctions on Iran, the social economy among those from low-income households plays

a significant role in the economic survival of the poor This book is focused

on Islamic women only, but this is not to overlook or undermine non- religious women’s efforts to reduce poverty

Keywords Community mobilization • Safety net • Social solidarity

economy • Islamist women • Market economy

The research idea for this book started back in the year 2003 when the US government under the Bush administration assumed that the invasion of Baghdad and the pulling down of the statue of Saddam Hussein would result in parades of joy by Iraqis This was to be a relatively simple US mis-sion that would be welcomed by the people There has been nothing

in the case of Iraq, there is support for those in power in Iran and some of that comes from women, many of them from low-income households who, for the most part, remain invisible in the eyes of those who support military solutions to US-Iranian relations After eight years of President Obama, who moved away from military solution and signed a deal, in

2016 President Trump came to office Since then the administration has leaned more towards military action and has been imposing more sanc-tions on Iran even though Iran has, according to the US state department, been in compliance with the nuclear deal, and some suspect an invasion of the country is looming in the background

While conducting research in Iran, I came across a great deal of munity mobilization and mutual help, partly rooted in the traditional social fabric of the country and partly energized and sprouting because of the 1979 Revolution and war in the 1980s Effectively, both the revolu-tion and the war were crises that sent major shock waves throughout the society, creating an invisible safety net, which enabled the economy to deal with them These types of safety net mechanisms are by no means limited

com-to Iran nor specifically com-to situation of war and revolution However, what

is perhaps unique in the case of Iran is that many women, who from an outside perspective appear passive, religious, obedient citizens, are actually highly engaged in community care Travelling inside Iran, this was the case throughout the country in many different ways These seemingly quiet women, when holding religious gatherings, make an important con-tribution to the country through their informal networks and have in effect spread an invisible safety net In every low-income neighborhood,

in every town, this type of safety net has spread widely and quietly Since these safety nets are created predominantly through religious practices, they are in accordance with Islamic tradition In other words, the assis-tance provided via these safety nets are treated as acts of God and therefore must be kept in confidence Those who give and those who receive do so for their faith and must withhold the identity of both parties

Yet, the importance of this stream of cash and in-kind assistance running throughout the country, arguably holding it together in dealing with

R BAHRAMITASH ET AL.

economic problems, remains hidden from the eyes of most academics, researchers and other observes; many of whom do not travel beyond North Tehran and perhaps almost exclusively meet with middle-class secu-lar women This book is a snapshot of how the vast majority of women who tend to remain observant of their religion and who deal with poverty and unemployment in their own community, by and large come from low- and lower-middle income households This by no means suggests that non-religious women of middle- and higher-income groups are inactive in the battle against poverty but they tend to engage in more formal organi-zations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), a shortlist of which

is included in Chap 5 Yet, since religious women are rarely the subject of fieldwork research, getting access and trust building to share information has been far from easy I have had to spend a great deal of time with uni-versity students who come from low-income households in order to get access to focus groups

While I was able to break that barrier, fieldwork without having a broader context remains incoherent for academic analysis, and for this reason I have used a broader theoretical frame—that of social or solidarity economy Ironically, social economy is more commonly used by the secu-lar left yet it seemed a perfect way of contextualizing the highly complex and multi-faceted findings of this research

In Chap 2, there is a discussion of the solidarity economy, its definition and how it is applied to the fieldwork included in the book The solidarity economy (otherwise also known as the third sector), separate from the public and the private economies, has been growing and there has been an increasing interest by academics and policy makers about its benefits This sector includes a wide range of institutions comprised of foundations and non-profit organizations, which tend to be more formal and regulated than the informal, community-based networks which deliver assistance, and some of them work on the basis of mutual help and are outside of the market economy In this book, the focus is on the most informal, community- based types run by women and rooted in low-income neigh-borhoods The creation of the solidarity economy (or this third sector) has both pros and cons On the one hand, critics argue that it undermines the responsibility of the government and the welfare state to provide for its citizen On the other hand, it is viewed as complementary to the welfare state, filling the gaps in the welfare state which is subject to a global trend

in its declining role of catering to issues relating to poverty in particular

Chapter 4 includes a discussion which invites the reader to develop a more complex understanding of Islamist women as they are not a homog-enous group and differ in the degree to which they are supportive or criti-cal of the established power Chapter 5 presents the data resulting from several focus groups comprised of 47 participants as well as 12 individual interviews conducted based on the findings of the focus groups The tim-ing of the interviews is interesting: they were conducted during the Presidency of Ahmadinejad when Iran was politically highly polarized and after what became known as the green revolution and mass protests which took place in 2009 It was a difficult time for data gathering for Western- based academics.

Perhaps the importance of the data is that it gives a window to the rest

of the world on the majority of women in Iran who come from low- and lower-middle income households and the degree to which they are com-mitted to the well-being of their communities This is where those who support a military option for Iran need to think very carefully: invasion of the country will not be welcome even by those who are viewed as the most oppressed segment of the society, women of low-income status

In conclusion (Chap 6), two long interviews are presented to wrap up the data In the first interview, a woman in her fifties, who has spent much

of her active life in post-revolutionary Iran and has worked as a volunteer for the Red Crescent, elaborates on how she collects charity funds and delivers aid especially to children in poverty stricken areas of rural Iran A second interview, with a young woman from a shantytown in Ahvaz a South-Western city, reveals her life and her commitment towards girls and young women She explains how hard she herself has had to fight against poverty and prejudices to attend higher education and to become a tech-nician in an operations room Earning a decent salary, she has no intention

R BAHRAMITASH ET AL.

of marriage or moving out of the notorious shanty town She chooses to stay and instead of buying or renting a place outside of the shanty town, rents a place within it, turning it into a community house for the girls and young women of her community Her dream is to change the attitude of her community towards higher education for girls and to give girls oppor-tunities to strive high and achieve their dreams She continues to be highly religious nonetheless, for her the community is her life and the well-being

of her community is not separate from her pursuit of individual happiness This is an interesting case since part of the discussion over the solidarity economy revolves around how it creates an opportunity for people to transform their community

© The Author(s) 2018

R Bahramitash et al., Low-Income Islamist Women and Social

Economy in Iran, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52539-0_2

CHAPTER 2

Social Economy and Women in Iran

Abstract The social solidarity economy essentially operates through a mix

of both public and private sector elements using both formal and informal methods at organizational and financial levels (including volunteering, state funds, in-kind support, self-help groups, etc.), making it very hard to define as a category It is nearly impossible to quantify its social and eco-nomic benefits but equally impossible to deny its importance in sustaining the economy This chapter provides an insight into how it operates as an informal community-based initiative operating through religious venues

Keywords Social economy • Socio-economic justice • Third sector •

Market and non-market oriented production • Collective responsibility

• Economic alternatives • Opportunistic advantage • Informal

community network

Social/Solidarity Economy

The term social economy made its debut in academic literature nearly 150 years ago The literature on the topic is based on the idea of social justice dating back to Ancient and Renaissance times, but the use of the term only emerged in the mid-nineteenth century French sociologist Frédéroc Le Play founded the Société International des Études Pratique d’Économie

Social and the Revue d’Économie Sociale paving the way for structured

discussions about the term social economy both in France as well as nationally through the 1867 Universal Exhibition (Bidet 1997, p.  31)

inter-By the early twentieth century, the term social economy was given full academic recognition through the efforts of a French academic economist known as Charles Gide Gide categorized the term social economy as the science of social justice or, in other terms, as the science of social utility stating: “The social economy … could be defined in the strict sense: the study of all efforts made to improve the condition of the people” (Moulaert and Ailenei 2005, p. 2040) During this same period, French economist Léon Walras emphasized that the notion of the distribution of wealth based on the criteria of what is “just” is what separates the idea of the social economy from that of pure traditional economics (Demoustier and Rousseliere 2004, p. 116) The idea of what is considered “just” varies worldwide, so it is unsurprising that there is a wide spread of definitions of

the social economy In other words, it is difficult to pin down an exact

definition of social economy because “depending on [a particular ies] (collective) interests and political vision, social actors and movements tend to broaden the definition so that it encompasses their own activities, while other try instead to narrow its scope in order to highlight their dif-ferences” (Lévesque and Mendell 2005, p.  25) Nonetheless, there are some key commonalities when it comes to socio-economic justice such as the inclusiveness of people in the labor market and the ability to sustain one’s basic needs

societ-The social economy is a mix of public and private sector as it bines: formal and informal elements at the level of organization (market, state, volunteering, self-help and domestic economy), market and non- market oriented production and valorisation of goods and services, mon-etary and non-monetary resources at the level of funding” (Moulaert and Ailenei 2005, p. 2042) The combination of formal and informal elements

“com-is ultimately what makes th“com-is third sector difficult to truly define Today, the third sector, social economy, solidarity economy, and social solidarity are all terms that are often used synonymously and, depending on the region of the world and the social and economic values of that region, the definitions of social economy, social solidarity economy, third sector, etc., are adapted to reflect that society’s perspective

The current concept of social economy, now commonly synonymous with the solidarity economy and the third sector, mainly involves the attempts to incorporate notions of social justice values into the economy

This is why the definition of social economy (and even more so social solidarity economy) can vary from country to country, province to prov-ince, even from one community to another at times owing to different value systems, as “each [… initiative] is connected to the specific needs of communities, protecting or promoting particular social relation” (Moulaert and Ailenei 2005, p. 2039) Nonetheless, as part of a concern for social justice, the solidarity economy is universally concerned with delivering the means for survival to those who are significantly economi-cally marginalized and effectively fills in the gap between what should be delivered by the two other sectors, especially through the welfare state.There are mixed reactions to the social economy; some are critical oth-ers supportive There are arguments against it by those who maintain that the social economy frees the state from its role as the provider of the wel-fare state In France, the rise of the contemporary “social and solidarity economy is […] linked to the reaction against neo-liberal principles and individualist ideology” (Moulaert and Ailenei 2005, p. 2041) As Moulaert and Ailenei explain: “when the [traditional] economic growth engine starts to stutter, formal distribution mechanisms begin to fail and new social forces develop and give rise to alternative institutions and mecha-nisms of solidarity and redistribution as a means of addressing the failures

of the institutions of the socioeconomic movements to guarantee ity among economic agents” (Moulaert and Ailenei 2005, p.  2038) Simply put, when formal institutions fail to redistribute wealth and the traditional relied-upon markets and/or the public sector social safety nets (if they exist in the first place) are unable to sustain people’s basic needs, then people turn to what can be referred to as the third sector economy The social economy can essentially “fill a civil society vacuum and provide concrete solutions to challenges arising in processes with local economic development and accountability” (UNRISD 2011, p. 6) Perhaps the big-gest failure of a capitalist economic system is the increasingly high volumes

solidar-of involuntary unemployment

On the positive side, Nancy Neamtam, Chief Executive Officer of the Chantier de l’économie sociale, states that “a specific geographic area” does not bind social economy and that it is in fact “a pragmatic response

to the economic and social challenges of globalization” (Neamtam 2005,

p. 71) The social and solidarity economies play a vital role in the tion of active and positive citizenship across the globe, while reinventing the relationships between members of civil society, the market and the state (Neamtam 2005, p.  71) These days, people’s skepticism toward

SOCIAL ECONOMY AND WOMEN IN IRAN

government is at an all-time high Citizens are not receiving sufficient value for their money, nor are they receiving a quality service that they are entitled to, and charities cannot keep taking up the slack left by govern-ment and the market (Neamtam 2005, p. 75).

Those who are supportive of the social economy are in line with the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy, which describes the social solidarity economy as “an economic approach that favours decentralization and local development […that] is driven by

ethical values such as solidarity, fair trade, voluntary simplicity and Buen

Vivir”1 (2014, p ix) It is argued that the social solidarity economy tates a voice and representation through self-organization, participatory governance and collective action at multiple levels” (UNRISD 2011) Recurring common themes of what constitutes the social solidarity econ-omy include the following: (1) democratic decision making among mem-bers who pool together their resources; (2) the organization, enterprise, cooperative, etc., is neither private nor public; (3) the foundation of activi-ties revolves around “the principles of participation, empowerment, and individual and collective responsibility” (Neamtam 2005, p. 72); (4) “pro-actively mobilize and redistribute resources and surplus in inclusive way that cater to people’s essential needs” (UNRISD 2011); (5) focus on those who are marginalized (so as to “leave no one behind”) (UNRISD 2011); (6) using a common pool of resources Particularly true for agriculture, often the social solidarity economy involves managing risks, for example by forming “informal mutual insurance groups, health insurance associations, community-based savings methods such as rotating savings and credit organizations (ROSCAs), complementary currencies, cereal and grain banks, and community-based provision of public good and services” (UNRISD 2011)

“facili-As far as institutions of social economy are concerned it has been gested that the social economy is primarily “made up of the voluntary, non-profit and co-operative sectors that are formally independent of the state,” while there is a distinction “made between non-profit sector and not-for-profit organizations” (Schifferes 2005)

sug-Interestingly, in Canada and in the province of Quebec there was torically a very proactive social economy through the Catholic Church until the 1960s After that it became secular but nonetheless still vibrant

his-In fact, since 1996, the creation of the Chantier de l’économie sociale has provided “a governance framework for all sectors in the social economy” (Lévesque and Mendell 2005, p. 24)

There is more and more interest in the topic of the social economy and part of it is due to the fact that in the past few decades the world has wit-nessed a rise in opposition to major corporations and the power they hold

As more and more labor unions join forces, campaigns opposing oly powers take place, and people establish economic alternatives and col-laborations, the initiative to create economic alternatives is becoming increasingly apparent (Poirier 2014) National organizations have become rather powerful advocates in the context of alternative economic approaches; take for example the Canadian Community Economic Devel-

monop-opment Network (Ibid.).

In the case of Latin America, the grassroots movement of the Catholic Church became involved in anti-poverty initiatives as the demand for alternative economic frameworks became increasingly sought after The lack of success in experimenting with neoliberal economic policies gave rise to widespread socio-political changes in national policies, causing countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela to turn to development and citizenship rights, as well as regional integration (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 2013) Many governments throughout Latin America have taken it upon themselves to establish national institutions and strategies to further advance this intention “The creation of UNASUR, the expanded mem-bership of MERCOSUR (mercosur is a Latin American equivalent of the European Union) with the incorporation of Venezuela and its greater political character beyond its market integration orientation, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), and the creation of Council of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) are indicative of emerging

forms of post-neoliberal regionalism” (Ibid.) In recent times, we are

wit-nessing progressive governments shifting their policies towards a social solidarity economy agenda in an effort to thoroughly rebuild the region and strengthen it at its core

Institutions such as MERCOSUR and UNASUR have started rating various elements of the social solidarity economy into their plans and policies, while establishing cooperatives that encourage and promote integration (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 2013) “The Southern Market (MERCOSUR) is the leading space for the regionalization of the SSE agenda while Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) has only recently adopted it as another goal for policy coordi-nation in addition to defense, infrastructure, energy, health and others”

incorpo-(Ibid.) Introducing regional policies with a social solidarity economy

SOCIAL ECONOMY AND WOMEN IN IRAN

agenda is both varying and volatile On the one hand, the social solidarity economy is seen as a way to develop socially inclusive types of capitalist development, while on the other, it is viewed as an opportunistic advan-tage to gain support for the initiation of new economic and political mod-

els that transcend current economic systems (Ibid.).

Social Economy and WomEn in thE caSE of iran

As discussed before, part of the social economy’s raison d’être is related to

the issue of poverty reduction and is a form of social protection The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) held a conference in collaboration with the International Labor Org-anization (ILO) entitled “Potential and Limits of Social and Solidarity Economy” heralding an era in which social protection is energized by social economy During this conference in 2013, Peter Utting delivered a report suggesting that the notions of social and solidarity economy need

to be diversified and expanded in a manner that would bring together the state and for-profit private enterprises He insisted that the social and soli-darity economy must go beyond the current micro (local) levels The importance of this conference lies in the fact that leading international research institutes, notably the ILO and UNRISD, are now thinking about how to engage policy makers in the social and solidarity economy so

as to” [broaden] their approach beyond a focus on the economic erment of individuals, and more toward groups…”.2 This in many ways revives discussion in 2004 by Dachex and Laville who insisted that “the [current] social economy is defined not only as economic activity with a social purpose but also as [an] activity based on a new, broader concept of the economy and politics” (Lévesque and Mendell 2005, p. 27)

empow-It is widely recognized that girls and women are disproportionately resented among the extreme poor and needy in many parts of the world This is not limited to their lack of access to the labor market but also the type of employment (e.g., in the low-paid informal sector) they tend to be restricted to, which increases their vulnerability and undermines their abil-ity to provide for their families Women also face greater economic risks, as their labor is used as a buffer against shocks and crises, while they also shoulder the bulk of care for their families, especially in the developing world where traditional gender roles continue to persist At the same time, there has been extensive documentation on how women’s control over the intra-household allocation of food transfer benefits their families (Bahramitash 2005) As a result, gender issues have become increasingly pivotal in the national policy discourse

Despite the rapid growth of the literature on gender and economic empowerment around the world, similar studies of the MENA countries in general, and with regard to Iran in particular, remain limited There is a clear need for a better understanding of the social protection programs and agencies, such as safety nets, pensions and unemployment programs, through documentation and impact assessments Such evaluations can inform policy and help enhance the impact of social safety nets Research on how the social economy provides social protection and mechanisms through which it operates, embedded within informal networks of community dom-inated by women, remain anecdotal and mainly under researched

In this context, Iran is a particularly interesting case because the issue

of social vulnerability has been a major concern since the 1979 Revolution, followed by a long war and intensifying international economic sanctions Indeed, the constitution and the public’s expectations have committed the government to universal and public education and cheap and adequate food, housing and healthcare provision At the same time, the political order established after the revolution has given rise to new institutional arrangements that have caused a variety of social protection agencies—public, quasi-public and private—to target various groups

The government’s most significant social protection program has been its massive subsidy system that has kept food, energy and medicine low- cost Over the past years, the government has attempted to reduce such subsidies and replace them with household cash transfers However, in the face of high inflation rates created by a combination of over-spending and international sanction, the subsidy system has partially reverted towards its previous form Other major governmental mechanisms of social protec-tion have been the Social Welfare Organization (SWO), which deals with some aspects of poverty reduction, particularly disability, and the Social Security Organization (SSO), which offers pensions and insurance schemes for a large part of the population Kevan Harris has recently documented how, contrary to commonly held views on Iran as a rigid state, there has been a welfare state expansion in post-revolutionary Iran, a topic on which

he arguably calls for to open a new line of research (2017)

While the state provides different types of programs, specifically with regard to health and education, there is also a host of quasi-state foun-dations that operate more or less independently of the government, though they receive various forms of support and budgetary funding from the government A prominent example of this group is the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation (IKRF) that focuses entirely on poverty reduction A third set of social-protection actors are community-based

SOCIAL ECONOMY AND WOMEN IN IRAN

or religious charity organizations, both formal and informal, that offer basic needs support (Bahramitash 2013, 2014) Finally, there are many NGOs that address poverty and other social issues from different angles NGOs expanded significantly under the reformist government of President Khatami during 1997–2005, but faced a major clampdown in the subsequent eight years during the Ahmadinejad presidency However, since the election of President Rouhani in 2013, the government has tried

to revitalize NGOs and charities to strengthen the social protection system

in the face of a deep recession, sanctions and budget shortages

Generally, the role of such organizations, as well as the welfare state, in social protection programs is under researched as Harris (2017) points out But what is even more overlooked is informal and community efforts operating through and by women’s networks, in this case low-income Islamic ones In this book, the reader will be presented with the results of interviews and focus groups discussions carried out among women who support the existing power structure in Iran As we shall see, they hold a spectrum of views, yet they seem to come together when community care, and in this case poverty reduction, is concerned Furthermore, not only have those interviewed, with views ranging from highly critical to highly supportive, built the solidarity economy, some of them have also reached out to non-religious and non-power structure supportive women of middle- class background

The interviews and focus groups have attempted to target a wide range

of women from low-income households and from different parts of the country in four cities, Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz and Zahedan, the last being

in one of the most economically challenged parts of Iran The book ends with two case studies, one based on a recent interview with a religious woman engaged in personal fundraising through various ways, such as social media, to deliver aid to children in poverty stricken areas The sec-ond one is an interview with a young woman who is from a slum in Ahwaz,

a South-western city in Iran, from an Arab-Iranian community A young women who is waging a campaign to raise funds and support for girls’ education She remains highly devoted to her religion and has dedicated herself to changing the lives of women in her slum community, facilitating their education and access to employment She is an example of the type

of potential embedded in the social economy And, finally, this case shows how women can build solidarity to bring about change without necessarily rejecting their community’s support for religion

notES

1 Buen Vivir recognizes the principle of living in harmony not only with

dif-ferent people but also with Mother Earth.

2 This quote comes from a think piece by Peter Utting, the Deputy Director

of UNRISD, in which he also coordinates research projects on the global financial crisis, corporate social responsibility, business regulation, and the role of civil society actors in governance The think piece is entitled “Social and Solidarity Economy: A Pathway to Socially Sustainable Development?” http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BE6B5/search/AB920B1563 39500AC1257B5C002C1E96 OpenDocument available at UNRISD web- site, Retrieved October 2013.

BiBliography

Bahramitash, R (2005) Liberation from Liberalization: Gender and Globalization

in Southeast Asia London: Zed Books.

Bahramitash, R (2013) Gender and Entrepreneurship in Iran: Microenterprise

and the Informal Sector New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bahramitash, R (2014) Low-Income Islamic Women, Poverty and the Solidarity

Economy in Iran Middle East Critique, 23(3), 363–377.

Bidet, É (1997) L’Économie Social Paris: Le Monde-Editions.

Demoustier, Danièle, & Rousseliere, Damien (2004) Social Economy as Social Science and Practice: Historical Perspectives on France 1 Laboratoire d’Economie de la Production et de l’Intégration Internationale Retrieved July

31, 2017, from http://base.socioeco.org/docs/cahr_emoi6.pdf

Lévesque, B., & Mendell, M (2005) L’économie sociale: diversité des définitions

et des constructions théoriques, Revenue: Interventions Économiques Retrieved

July 31, 2017, from https://interventionseconomiques.revues.org/852 Moulaert, Frank, & Ailenei, Oana (2005) Social Economy, Third Sector and Solidarity Relations: A Conceptual Synthesis from History to Present Urban Studies, Vol 42, No 11, 2037–2053 Retrieved July 31, 2017, from https://pdfs semanticscholar.org/055b/7c32213070924fa45fe87c11b3ad33908ae7.pdf Neamtam, Nancy (2005) The Social Economy: Finding a Way Between the Market and the State Policy Opinions Retrieved August 04, 2017, from http://havenscenter.wisc.edu/files/Neamtan2005_PolicyOptions.pdf

Poirier, Yvon (2014) Social Solidarity Economy and related concepts Retrieved August 04, 2017, from https://ccednet-rcdec.ca/sites/ccednet-rcdec.ca/files/ ccednet/solidarity_economy_and_other_concepts-poirier-july-2014.pdf Schifferes, Steve (2005) Blow to EU economic reform hopes, BBC News Retrieved July 04, 2017, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4602565.stm

SOCIAL ECONOMY AND WOMEN IN IRAN

Social and Solidarity Economy and the Challenge of Sustainable Development (2014) United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy Retrieved July 31, 2017, from http://unsse.org/wp-content/ uploads/2014/08/Position-Paper_TFSSE_Eng1.pdf

United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (2011) Social Development in an Uncertain World: UNRISD Research Agenda: 2010–2014 Retrieved March 11, 2018, from http://www.unrisd org/80256B42004CCC77/(httpInfoFiles)/43BFA3387807E7E680257920 004253C7/$file/ResAge10-14a.pdf

© The Author(s) 2018

R Bahramitash et al., Low-Income Islamist Women and Social

Economy in Iran, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52539-0_3

CHAPTER 3

Women’s Role in the Political Economy:

An Overview

Abstract There is a lack of both quantitative and qualitative academic

data on the productive contribution of women in the MENA region Part

of this is due to the fact that much women’s work occurs within the mal sector This chapter provides an overview of women’s economic status and their role in the economy and contextualizes the research findings while providing the reader with some background knowledge about events

infor-in post-revolutionary Iran and with regard to women’s economic status since the late 1970s

Keywords Revolution • Post-war reconstruction • Political reform

• Post-reform • Social justice • Gender segregation

Globally, women’s role in the political economy and more specifically in the labor force tends to be mostly undocumented This is an important point as we launch into this chapter geared towards an understanding of women’s contribution to the social economy Lack of proper data on women’s economic status is due to a variety of reasons The most common reason is the blurred boundaries between the productive (as workers) and the reproductive worlds (women’s work as mothers and wives) (Waring

1999; Gardiner 1997; Anker 1998, p. 58; Benería 2003, pp. 133–136; Bahramitash 2005, p. 44) The lack of proper data tends to be even more

problematic in the MENA Region This is partly due to certain aspects of the region, namely gender segregation, which can lead to the invisibility of women’s contribution to the economy (Bahramitash and Esfahani 2016) Moreover, in academia, stereotypical assumptions about women in the Muslim world in general and in this case Iran, lean towards viewing women

as limited subjects, docile and typically victims of Islamic patriarchy (See Bahramitash and Hooglund 2011)

Like most stereotypical assumptions, these assumptions do not hold true Historically, women in Iran have played an important role in the production of a greatly diversified economy throughout the different regions of the country In particular, Iran’s agriculture has always bene-fited from women’s work in all stages of its production from planting to harvesting and processing, as well as herding and animal husbandry This

is in addition to the industrial sector, and it is worth noting that Iran’s famous Persian carpets are a result of the art of its women.1

In addition to women’s contribution to the formal labor sectors, there

is a growing global trend towards the expansion of the informal labor kets where women continue to have a growing impact In fact, women’s work in the informal economy is increasingly becoming central to the eco-nomic survival and well-being of families, especially lower-income house-holds (Portes et al 1989; Charmes 1998; Chen et al 2004, 2005; Chen

mar-2012; Horn 2009, 2011) This is also the case in Iran as documented by Bahramitash (2013) In this chapter, women’s paid work in the formal and informal economy will be overviewed in order to contextualize their role

in the social economy, as an important pillar of poverty reduction The informal economy is especially important as it ties in with women’s infor-mal role in the social economy, in this case the informal social economy.This chapter focuses on women’s economic status to provide a back-ground to women’s role in the political economy of post-revolutionary Iran, divided into five periods: (1) the Islamic revolution; (2) war era; (3) post-war reconstruction; (4) political reform; (5) and post-reform eras Each period marks a distinct political and economic environment and dif-ferent approaches to women’s social life, including employment

The IslamIc RevoluTIon, 1979

In the late 1970s, mass discontent against Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and his pro-West, pro-modernization regime led to rising support for Ayatollah Khomeini, a charismatic Shia Muslim religious figure, and eventu-

ally a revolution that ended thousands of years of monarchy While there is evidence that the overall standard of living for Iranians actually improved during the decade leading up to the 1979 Revolution (Esfahani 2002; Esfahani and Farzad 2002), grievances against the Shah were centered on rising economic inequality in addition to increasing globalization, and in particular, concerns over policies imposing cultural Westernization and compromising traditional values (Abrahamian 1982) Ironically, while it was the urban middle class and the elite who benefited the most from the Shah’s developmental policies and rising oil prices, the latter were instrumental in mobilizing the middle and lower classes against the Shah (Assadzadeh and Paul 2004; Piraei and Ghanaatian 2007; Esfahani and Pesaran 2009; Salehi-Isfahani 2009)

Popular discontent against the Shah led to a political vacuum, which paved the way for the Ayatollah to come forth with an agenda that unified the opposition, including the leftists, nationalists and Islamists, under the banner of social and economic justice centered on empowerment of eco-

nomically deprived groups (mostazafin) The issue of economic justice is

an important topic in this book and to the social economy as it seeks to spread a safety net for the community

Perhaps it is not surprising that economic justice politically mobilized

a large number of women, many of them educated and from the middle class, in spite of the fact that the Pahlavi’s projects of modernization and Westernization resulted in some improvements in women’s social and legal rights The Shah’s “white revolution” in the 1960s had given women the right to vote and a progressive family protection law The new family protection law imposed restrictions on polygamy, recognized women’s rights to initiate divorce and assume custody of children, eased the abor-tion penalties, increased the minimum age of marriage from nine to 15 for girls, and facilitated conditions for women to work as judges (Mahdi

2004) This was a follow-up to the Westernization agenda where the

Shah’s father (Reza Shah) had imposed an unveiling decree, which

pro-hibited women from appearing in public with the veil and introduced modern dress codes, enforced by the police From a liberal feminist per-spective, women’s participation in a revolution to overthrow a regime that was promoting Western models of gender equality became one of the most puzzling phenomena of the 1970s (Ghamari-Tabrizi 2016) What liberal feminists may have failed to realize is that forced unveiling and the removal of choice for the masses of women only pleased the middle and upper classes, and the rest of the population was disappointed by the

WOMEN’S ROLE IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY: AN OVERVIEW

marginalization of the poor and a failure to address equality for all This was something which eventually brought millions of women who were against Western type liberation to demand equality and social justice for all, many of whom remain active in their communities.

While Pahlavi’s modernization reforms improved the public tation of upper-middle class, educated and secular women, even for these women the reforms did not result in any serious changes in their political power (Naghibi 1999) The overall political repression and exacerbated income inequalities in the country downgraded the significance of equal legal rights in the eyes of many women In fact, legal changes made a mar-ginal impact on the lives of the majority of women who lived in rural areas, and for the working class and urban poor The female labor force partici-pation rate increased slowly during the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, but the new jobs were mainly for members of the privileged class—the urban middle class (Bahramitash and Esfahani 2011)

represen-Khomeini, who had previously emphasized women’s exclusive roles in the private sphere as mothers and wives, changed his view during the revo-lution as he recognized that he needed their support to win Highlighting

women’s historical role in Muslim society (ummah) and their engagement

in political matters, Khomeini encouraged women to come out of their homes and participate in the demonstrations Putting forward role models such as Fatemeh and Zeinab (the daughter and granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammad), he marked women’s historical role, shoulder to shoulder with men, in building Muslim society

Both Fatemeh and Zeinab were sacred historical icons in the minds and hearts of religious groups and well-respected for their political roles and leadership in building the Islamic community The two women were also models of promoters of social justice Many religious families who resented their daughters’ presence in public spaces, even for education during the Pahlavi’s regime, became an advocate of women’s participation in the rev-olutionary events Many educated, modernized women voluntarily started wearing the hijab to demonstrate their opposition against the Shah (Naghibi 1999) The battle for political freedom and social justice brought women from all corners together, whether rich or poor, religious or secular

With women at the forefront of demonstrations, the Islamic revolution succeeded in the winter of 1979 The Shah left the country and Khomeini ordered a referendum to establish a new regime; 99.3% voted to turn Iran into an Islamic Republic Yet ironically, despite their significant contributions

to the revolution, women were among the first groups whose lives became the target of radical Islamization in the early years after the revolution (Moghissi 1996; Shaditalab 2006) Veiling in public became mandatory—

a major blow to the secular middle class who had joined the revolution—followed by gender segregation in education, occupations and other public spaces The progressive family protection law passed by the Shah was immediately removed as a sign of Western imperialism depriving women of many of their already achieved rights, including divorce

However, as shown by a tremendous body of research to date, the impact of the Islamic state on women’s lives has been heterogeneous and in many cases has had contradictory outcomes For example, while compul-sory hijab and gender segregation imposed many limitations on women’s public mobility, especially the middle class and secular groups, they pro-vided more opportunities for religious and working-class women to work, study and become socially and politically active (Andrews and Shahrokni

2014; Bahramitash 2004, 2013, Mir-Hosseini 1999) In addition, as Hosseini (1999) has shown in her book, there has never been a unique, unilateral, state-imposed discourse about women after the revolution; women’s status has been very much impacted by political forces at work

Mir-WaR eRa (1980–1988)

The period following the revolution saw a major economic recession and rising poverty due to disruption of production as a result of major institu-tional change, declining oil revenues, an eight year war with Iraq, and US-led economic sanctions Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of the country decreased by 30% between 1978 and 1988 (Esfahani and Pesaran 2009) As discussed in the previous section, despite women’s active participation in the revolution, their social status was not improved

in the ways they expected The Islamic state’s new laws, including veiling and gender segregation, alienated some middle-class, professional and secular women and forced many of them to leave their jobs and even the country With respect to work and employment, the data reveals a drop in women’s share of the labor force in the early years after the revolution from 11.3% in 1976 to 10.6% in 1986 in urban areas and from 17.6% to 9.8% in rural areas (Statistical Center of Iran) Kian (1997) argues that despite the efforts of Islamist women to call attention to women’s social and economic challenges, especially those women with lower incomes and war widows, their issues were marginalized and blamed on the post- revolutionary crisis

WOMEN’S ROLE IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY: AN OVERVIEW

Considering the immediate and visible impacts of the revolution on women’s public life, especially compulsory veiling, the decrease in wom-en’s employment buttressed the assumption that women were pushed back into the home under the Islamic state However, scholars have shown that this is a more complex pattern which cannot be understood in isola-tion from the overall instabilities of the post-revolution era which weak-ened the country’s economy as a whole and caused the total employment rate to drop from 42.6% to 39% during the same period (Esfahani and Pesaran 2009; Bahramitash and Esfahani 2011; Bahramitash 2007) When taking other factors into consideration, notably the eight-year war and economic sanctions, Islamization rates low in the decline of women’s employment during this period Data shows that men’s employment had also declined during the same period as a result of the general economic decline.

To put this in perspective, during the time when many countries in the region like Egypt and Tunisia were opening their markets to international investment as a response to World Bank structural adjustments in the 1980s, Iran was not only fighting a war but also facing economic isolation due to the sanctions imposed by the United States Even after the war, when the Iranian government was determined to open up its market, attract international investment and increase non-oil exports, economic sanctions impeded Iran from participating in the global economy (Olmsted

2011) leading to what some scholars have called, a period of de- globalization (Bahramitash and Esfahani 2011, P 22) While the impact of economic isolation on women’s unemployment is hard to measure, schol-ars agree that the carpet industry, which hosted a large percentage of women’s work, especially in the rural areas, was hit the most by sanctions The market for hand-woven carpets started shrinking after the revolution due to the deterioration of political and economic relations with the United States, the main market for Persian carpets Between 1978 and

1988, carpet exports declined by 70% Deterioration of the carpet market disproportionately impacted rural and working-class women for whom carpet weaving was the main source of income and discouraged many from seeking jobs (Olmsted 2011; Karimi 2011; Velayati 2011)

The eight-year war with Iraq was also a key factor in shaping women’s economic participation The war not only disrupted the labor market, but also channeled women’s time to managing household needs in the economic hardship of wartime, especially those women whose husbands were fighting the war Moreover, some state policies, such as

early retirement offers to government employees (Moghadam 2004) and retirement benefits for rural workers, encouraged many women to leave their jobs

Despite the decrease in women’s share of the labor force, this decade saw an increase in women’s public presence in a unique way and mainly

as volunteers Following the revolution, one of the important mobilizing forces remained economic justice (Bahramitash 2004) and the Islamic Republic put great emphasis on addressing poverty and inequalities in health and education through increased access to social protection Khomeini called for a series of social justice programs or jihads to improve literacy, health and housing in the rural areas These programs relied heavily on the work of volunteers and mobilized a large population of women to join the jihad’s cause Many of the women who joined Khomeini’s jihad were from traditional and religious families who were alienated during the Shah’s regime The Shah’s projects of Westernization and modernization rendered the public sphere an uneasy arena for such women to engage with, especially in the rural areas For example, veiled women were banned from certain public places and disadvantaged in public sector employment Khomeini’s call for women’s contribution to

a national cause brought groups of women into the public domain, those who would otherwise have been confined to the private sphere (Paidar

1995; Bahramitash 2014)

When the Shah relied on women’s work in his literacy and health corps

in the rural areas, mostly unveiled women joined his cause and, quently, their presence in some rural communities caused resentment Khomeini’s call, on the other hand, was received by masses of not only religious, but also upper-middle-class, secular women Many feminists and leftists worked shoulder to shoulder with Islamist women in literacy cam-paigns and owing to women’s volunteering work, the campaign made a significant improvement to women’s literacy rate In fact, the literacy rate among women aged ten and above raised from 30.9% in 1976 to more than 47.6% in 1986 (Statistical Center of Iran) The fact that many literacy campaigns were held in mosques with veiled women as teachers paved the way for many women from traditional and religious households to partici-pate in these classes without the objection of their families Veiled women turned out to be much more accepted in the rural communities than the unveiled women in the Shah’s campaigns Khomeini’s campaigns, in this sense, created an opportunity for different groups of women to work for the common cause of women’s empowerment

WOMEN’S ROLE IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY: AN OVERVIEW

As mentioned before, enforcement of gender segregation after the olution increased women’s public role, especially those from religious families (Bahramitash 2007, Shahrokni 2014), and created more job opportunities for them in some formal sectors such as teaching and nurs-ing (Povey 2001, 2005) Owing to gender segregation, some of the jobs became exclusively for women as men were not allowed into certain spaces; for example, security and body checking women in airports, all-female dorms, hair salons and recreation centers Segregation of public transpor-tation, such as buses, also improved women’s access to the public arena by creating safe means for them to commute from homes to schools, work-places or other public places like markets and banks Therefore, while gen-der segregation limited women’s access to certain fields, it improved women’s public mobility in other ways.

rev-One could argue that it was this post-war era which laid the grounds for further involvement of women in the social economy, in some ways sup-ported by the state and para-state institutions which will be described in the following section

PosT-WaR ReconsTRucTIon eRa (1989–1997)

Towards the end of the 1980s, and especially once Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989, a new era emerged, marked by the election of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a wealthy and influential cleric and a former student of Khomeini, as president This period is referred to as the economic recon-struction period Rafsanjani embarked on an accelerated growth program, was less interested in pursuing policies of economic redistribution, and instead encouraged the development of an entrepreneur class and private investment

The war ended in 1988 and the new government put an emphasis on social and economic development to pump new blood into a society dev-astated by almost a decade of instability under war and revolution Rafsanjani put great emphasis on economic recovery through a series of adjustments to open up the market and empower the private sector During the first decade after the revolution, the political discourse of Iran was centered on the idea of social justice and economic equality During Rafsanjani’s presidency the liberal discourse of economic development substituted the discourse of jihads for equality Yet, the plunge in the oil price and international economic sanctions burdened Rafsanjani’s plans to revitalize Iran’s non-oil economy

During the first few years of Rafsanjani’s term, the income of Iranians saw an overall increase However, this improvement turned out to be short-term due to poorly design policies and rising international debts The price of goods started increasing with a devastating impact on lower- class families including women During this period inequality slowly went

back to the pre-revolutionary era and the poor or “mostazafin” who were

central to the revolutionary discourse and politics became alienated Through the idea of empowering the poor, social protection and poverty reduction—social justice had been introduced during the Shah’s era—there were various foundations set up After the revolution the founda-tions were transferred to the new regime and continued their pre-revolutionary function though geared to various groups such as war and revolutionary veterans and their families

An example was the Foundation for the Disempowered (bonyad

mosta-safin”) Such foundations, by definition part of the social economy,

fur-ther encouraged the idea of a welfare state outside of the state—and addressed social justice There is literature on corruption in these founda-tions, although one may argue that foundations which tend to act autono-mously can easily be open to corruption and, in this case, the lax taxation laws in Iran make the operation of some of these foundation-based finan-cial activities less accountable and more arbitrary

In the post-war era and with the series of reforms put forward by Rafsanjani, in order to preserve the legacies of the revolution in the face of economic challenges, the government opened up the political space for more progressive Islamist intellectuals and clerics to reconfigure Islamic laws and reinvigorated civil society This eventually gave birth to the idea

of dynamic jurisprudence or “feghh e pooya” which opened up new ways of

looking at post-revolutionary Iran The newly found dynamic dence launched a new era—that of political and social reform and ultimately election of a new president, Seyyed Mohammad Khatami

jurispru-Women largely supported the new political climate and voted for a new president who not only promised to support women’s causes but to give space to the rise of civil society Some of the NGOs that have become strong today were founded during Khatami’s presidency

Concurrently, female labor force participation started recovering although still at a low rate of 4.4% (Bahramitash and Esfahani 2011,

p.  126) The recovery of the carpet industry in the 1990s helped to increase rural women’s labor force participation from 7.9% in 1986 to 10.7% in 1996 However, female labor force participation in urban areas

WOMEN’S ROLE IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY: AN OVERVIEW

did not see a major change during this period as the 1980s baby boomers channeled many urban women’s time to childcare Women’s employment rates, especially in the urban areas, started increasing following a general improvement in the country’s economy in the first years of Rafsanjani’s administration.2

Higher education was a key factor in improving women’s social status but not so much their economic opportunities Women gained more opportunities for education under Rafsanjani’s presidency as he explicitly encouraged women to pursue higher education, and this trend continued during Khatami’s presidency The percentage of female applicants sitting

in university entrance exams increased from 39% in 1988 to 49% in 1997 and continued to rise in the following years While public universities pro-vided free education for everyone, Rafsanjani established a series of private universities as part of his economic liberalization projects These private universities created unique opportunities for women’s education The per-centage of employed women with higher education increased from 75.8%

in 1987 to 82.5% in 1999 although their overall employment rate increased slightly from 8.2 to 9.1% during this same period (Rezai-Rashti and Moghadam 2011)

PolITIcal RefoRm eRa (1997–2005)

As mentioned at the end of the last section, a reform era marked by the presidency of Khatami, a progressive Islamist scholar and cleric and an advocate of dynamic jurisprudence, marked a shift in the social and politi-cal atmosphere of the country As mentioned earlier, Khatami’s policies were focused on strengthening civil society in the country and establishing peaceful international relations through his well-known idea of dialogue among civilizations Compared to Rafsanaji, Khatami focused less on eco-nomic issues and spent more time on social issues, particularly through empowering non-profit NGOs and a non-religious social economy Many opportunities became available to different groups, including women, to make their voices heard in the civil society

The women’s rights movement after the revolution became highly organized, effective and visible during the reform period (1997–2005) under Khatami’s presidency After eight years of post-war economic recon-struction, the reformist party headed by Khatami mobilized women by promising improvement in their political and social status As noted before, many women politically supported Khatami; more than 78% of

women voted for him as women’s rights were central to the reformist campaign in 1997 Despite the pressure from fundamentalist sectors of the state, such as the guardian council, the parliament (at the time), and the office of the Supreme Leader, civil society and women’s organizations were considerably empowered during this period NGOs and environ-mental grassroots organizations increased in number and the civil society opened up for women, allowing them to be publicly visible and with less restriction on dress

Female officials helped in attracting more attention to women’s ment The Ministry of Work and Social Affairs became more sensitized to women’s unemployment and to their working conditions A series of efforts was initiated during this period to provide health insurance for housewives and to promote women’s entrepreneurship through micro- credit and self-employment programs In fact, women were advantaged in receiving funds through credit support programs (Bahramitash 2007; Rezai-Rashti and Moghadam 2011) However, overall, the pattern of women’s employment and labor force participation did not see a major change during the reform era compared to the previous period Women’s labor force participation increased at the low rate of 5.8% during this period and their share of urban employment increased by only 1% between

employ-1996 and 2006 Women’s empowerment in civil society did not lead to a proportionate change in their work and employment status

However, it should be noted that, as is typical in developing countries, women’s work in the informal economy is not captured in the available data This proves to be true of Iran; for example, a large number of women from different socio-economic backgrounds work as hairdressers, dress-makers, fashion designers, food processors, fortune tellers and spiritual healers, babysitters, maids, private caterers and tutors The informal sector typically offers more flexibility than the formal sector, which is why it has been a growing part of the economy throughout the world, and many women work in the informal sector (Benería 2003, p.  114) Olmsted (2011) estimates that despite economic isolation and a shrinking of public sectors, Iranian women’s participation in the labor force has been increas-ing as more women are participating in private and informal sectors A study conducted by the Center for Women’s Participation showed that women’s employment increased from 12.1% in 1996 to 14.24% in 1999 (Bahramitash 2007)

Despite the lack of data, it is reasonable to argue that women’s demand for work increased during this period for several reasons: (1) women’s

WOMEN’S ROLE IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY: AN OVERVIEW

average age of marriage increased by more than four years between 1966 and 2006 (Bahramitash and Esfahani 2011, p. 92); (2) fertility rates con-tinued to decrease reaching 1.87 in 2005; (3) women’s educational attain-ments kept rising and women outnumbered men in universities by 1998; and (4) more importantly, rising poverty and high inflation continued to force women to seek employment (Bahramitash 2007) Moreover, the opening of civil society during this era and the emergence of a powerful discourse about gender equality, relaxed many of the limitations on wom-en’s work and public mobility in general.

At any rate, the reform era ended with a bitter sense of disappointment among the public Field observation during this period suggests that in the minds of the urban middle class, the government’s perceived failure to address poverty and lack of political freedom promised by the reformist president translated into a lack of motivation in taking part in the polls and voting in 2005 Some continue to argue that the reform movement needed

to address economic issues more efficiently in order to have been more successful Khatami was unable to reform the price control system that was costing the government almost 20% of GDP (Salehi-Isfahani 2011) Thus, the issue of economic justice continued to plague Iran’s political economy The middle class, who was not impressed by the reform, continued to criti-cize the reform president for not addressing poverty and inequality even though the Gini coefficient remained the same as before at around 0.43 (similar to that of the United States) during the reform era Dissatisfaction with the reformist government created a political vacuum that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a conservative presidential candidate, was able to fill

Backlash agaInsT The RefoRm: 2005–2013

Ahmadinejad had already built a profile for himself as someone supportive

of the poor and social and economic justice while the mayor of Tehran His major political campaign slogan was addressing the problem of pov-erty He claimed that he would bring oil money to people’s table and assistance to rural areas He wore very inexpensive clothing and advocated

a simple lifestyle This ultimately led to his victory against Rafsanjani in

2005 He continued to articulate a populist agenda during his presidency particularly in his speeches in many impoverished rural areas

In 2010, he pushed through a major spending reform despite concerns about its deteriorating impact on already high rates of inflation The reform involved massive cuts in public subsidies on both fuel and various

food items In its place the government introduced a cash transfer gram as well as gas cards While Ahmadinejad’s original hope was to make the cash transfer program target lower-income households, the govern-ment began a cash transfer of 450,000 Rials per month per individual to household heads (the equivalent of about $300 per person per year) (Salehi-Isfahani 2011).3 Salehi-Isfahani argues that among the poor “the excitement of getting a chunk of cash per month most likely outweighed the pain of disappearing subsidies.”

pro-Ahmadinejad made radical changes in  local and international affairs, which cost the country both politically and economically The instability caused by the post-election protests, known as the Green Movement, in

2009, and the devastating impact of the new rounds of international tions against Iran’s nuclear program made Ahmadinejad’s second term more challenging During this period, he lost the Supreme Leader’s full support, particularly as incidences of corruption in his government were publicized.4

sanc-There has been a great deal of discussion and resource mobilization around the issue of economic justice and, in fact, Iran’s performance in human development has fared well in the past few decades The 2010 U.N. Human Development Report ranked Iran 70 out of 169 countries—higher than Brazil at 73, Venezuela at 75, and Turkey at 83—in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI), although the gender gap suffered significantly during Ahmadinejad administration and the trend has contin-ued Unfortunately, the latest data from the Global Gender Gap Report (2013)5 shows that Iran, similar to all the countries in the MENA region, ranks very low in the Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI) Iran’s overall ranking is 137 (out of a total of 142 countries.) In the case of economic participation and opportunities it drops even more to 139, while it fares higher in health (89), education (104) and political participation (135) Iran is part of the MENA country group in which 11 countries out of the total 17 have the worst gap in economic participation (less than 50%) Yet, the region fares relatively well in education and health

This illustrates that Iran was successful in improving basic conditions for its population but the woman’s lot suffered in post-reform Iran Yet, as this book indicates, while the state social programs were recognized by international organizations and via formal channels, women’s role as com-munity care providers remains invisible

On the issue of economic hardship, although Djavad Salehi Isfahani (2011) argues that cash transfers led to a decrease in income disparity,

WOMEN’S ROLE IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY: AN OVERVIEW

fieldwork for this book suggests that concerns about economic hardship and income inequality remained at the center of Iran’s politics Economic adjustments for helping the poor did not necessarily translate into better welfare for the most vulnerable groups due to government mishandling of the economy as well as to the impact of economic sanctions starting in

2006 With Ahmadinejad’s response to the Bush administration, Europeans and Americans imposed the harshest sanctions on Iran’s econ-omy Iran and the United States became further enemies and diplomatic ties became more and more restricted at the expense of people’s welfare.Economic hardship is particularly detrimental to women’s employment and during Ahmadinejad’s presidency, women’s share of the labor force dropped from 19.96% in 2005 to 17.56% in 2008 (World Bank) Women’s labor force participation decreased from 20.14% in 2006 to 15.5% in 2011 Between 2009 and 2013—the second term of Ahmadinejad’s presidency and when the impact of economic sanctions on the country’s economy reached its peak—the number of employed women decreased by 14.2% While men’s employment rate decreased during this period as well, still the percentage of men participating in the labor market far outweighed that of women; 63% compared to 12.4% In 2013, for every 100 women employed, there were 579 men employed In the same year, women constituted 14.7%

of the employed and 31.1% of the unemployed population In the same year, 51.6% of employed women were in service, 25% in industry and 23.4%

in agriculture This distribution has changed compared to 2009 with 44%

in service, 30.5% in agriculture and 25.5% in industry, and signals the transition of women’s work from industry and agriculture to the service sector, as mentioned before

During Ahmadinejad’s presidency, the country’s economy shrunk under the impact of economic sanctions and there seemed to be public hopelessness towards the job market The economic sanctions were crip-pling but government policies were equally inefficient and unsuccessful in generating employment and economic prosperity By 2009, there was mass mobilization and what some call a revolutionary movement when millions of Iranians (the young in particular) caused a radical shift to a moderate government by voting for two, highly moderate, presidential candidates The protest was met with a massive clamp down on what has been referred to as the Green Movement Ahmadinejad’s second term in office was fiercely contested by many and had it not been owing to a major, and in some cases very violent, suppression by the military and the paramilitary, the public would not have complied

To end this chapter it is worth pointing out some of the important themes which were touched upon First, US presidents who take a military stand regarding the Middle East and North Africa, such as the Bush administration and now perhaps the Trump administration, tend to impose sanctions and press for regime change, and that creates an a mirror image in Iran which translates into a win for hard liners The hardliners in Iran typically run on ideology and neglect the economy, which together with economic sanctions generates hardship for people And women espe-cially suffer directly both through losing their rights as well as access to employment Nonetheless, they remain mobilized to provide community care and in this case the focus is on anti-poverty efforts This is ironic since they experience social, political and economic setbacks, yet they maintain their role as an informal welfare state and through their social networks provide a safety net In this book data is gathered from Islamist women who bring social protection to their community However, this by no means suggests that non-regime supportive or secular women are not part

of the social economy which is highly involved in the safety net; they are simply more visible than those who are religious and for this reason previ-ous data has focused on them

noTes

1 For a more detailed account of women’s role in the labor force, Bahramitash and Esfahani have put together a collection of chapters examining different aspects of women’s work in the formal labor force in rural and urban con- texts (Bahramitash and Esfahani 2011 ).

2 Women’s share of the labor force increased from 10.2% in 1986 to 13.4% in

1999 (Bahramitash 2007 ) In urban areas, the share of the manufacturing sector in women’s employment increased from 11.8% in 1986 to 19.2% in

1996 The share of women’s employment in the private sector also started increasing during this period In rural areas, the share of agriculture in wom- en’s employment sharply dropped while rising in the manufacturing sector, especially the carpet industry, from 33.6 to 51% Overall, women’s employ- ment moved away from the agricultural sector towards manufacturing and service during this period, and later became more dominated by the service sector The positive trend in women’s employment and labor force partici- pation continued into the next two decades, as we will discuss.

3 Iran recently experienced a severe de-valuation Before that, the value of the cash transfer would have been almost double ($540), in terms of interna- tional purchasing power.

WOMEN’S ROLE IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY: AN OVERVIEW

4 As an example, part of the fieldwork was in the aftermath of a major embezzlement in July 2012; a major bank fraud, which tainted the govern- ment of Ahmadinejad It was a major shock to everyone to know that a $2.6 billion bank loan embezzlement had occurred and some of the political elite

of the regime were involved This was the largest fraud in the history of post- revolutionary Iran The mastermind of the scheme was a businessman This led to the resignation of the former head of Iran’s National Bank who fled to Canada where records showed he owned a $3 million home Ahmadinejad rejected claims that suggested the scandal had any links to his close aides.

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© The Author(s) 2018

R Bahramitash et al., Low-Income Islamist Women and Social

Economy in Iran, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52539-0_4

CHAPTER 4

Islamist, Islamic and Muslim Women

Abstract This chapter examines the heterogeneity of Iranian women,

shedding light on an intellectual lacuna since most research on Iranian women has a tendency to focus mainly if not entirely on middle-class secu-lar women The chapter seeks to bring an understanding to the complexi-ties of the subject matter and debunks single categorical assumptions about Iranian women Religious women have been mobilized from the outset of the 1979 Revolution to participate in community-based efforts

to deliver community care and this has continued until now alongside their traditional role and as volunteers

Keywords Islamist • Islamic • Muslim women

A recent graduate from a UK university, who worked as a full-time sor at Tehran university, wrote in an e-mail to Bahramitash during field-work in June 2012: “I earn what others earn and go to buy groceries, then

profes-I want to cry when profes-I see the prices How can people live? How can they survive? I am going to make a film about their misery.”

It was not difficult to document the sudden hardship imposed on ordinary people’s lives