On 10/28/06, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Rather, the main point I read was that Yoshie was only highlighting the happy side of the story. If she had clearly acknowledged the negative side of the story, and _then_ said "Iran isn't as bad for women as you think," the whole discussion would have gone much better. Instead, she seemed to come out with just the happy side.
I've mentioned the struggles that people in Iran are actually waging, from women's struggles for better family law to a documentary about the conditions of transsexuals. Pointing out those things isn't exactly showing "just the happy side," for, if conditions were only happy, no struggle of any sort would be necessary.
Also, I went and read one of the articles she cited. (I don't have a record of which one, so I can't check my recollection.) Sure, things were going well for women in some ways in Iran. But it was because women were struggling for better lives. That makes very important points (i.e., that no-one, not even Iranian women, are total robots ruled by others, never resisting, and that people can make their lives better by struggling). But it didn't deny the utterly patriarchal nature of the regime (which is what people were asserting). Instead it pointed out that patriarchy can be made better via struggle.
I don't know what you mean by saying that the regime is "utterly patriarchal," but, imho, an utterly patriarchal regime denies women education as in Afghanistan under the Taliban, denies women the right to drive as in Saudi Arabia, denies women the right to vote as in Switzerland before 1971 (which stands out as an astoundingly late date for women to gain suffrage in the West), and so on. Moreover, many of the feminists who have made successful efforts to change conditions in Iran have been part of the Iranian regime. The most prominent example of this category of Iranian feminists is Faezeh Hashemi, a daughter of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and an MP (Tehran) from 1996 to 2000. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
