The Iranian Left and the “Woman Question” in the Revolution of 1978–79

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8965115
AutoresHammed Shahidian (University of Illinois at Springfield, autor de correspondencia)
Año1994
Volumen26
Número2
Páginas223-247
Fecha de publicación1994-05-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020743800060220
OpenAlexW2109052946
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas16
Referencias citadas41

The relationship between feminism and socialism in both the theoretical and practical realms has been marked with difficulty and “unhappiness.” Feminists have criticized leftists for their lack of attention to sexual domination, and many socialists, in turn, have looked at women's liberation movements as a bourgeois deviation or, worse yet, a conspiracy against the workers' struggle. In 19th-century social democratic movements in Europe, conflicts between feminist-socialist advocates of women's rights such as Clara Zetkin and “proletarian anti-feminism” among workers and communists were constant. Eventually, guided by the theoretical insights of a number of socialist leaders such as Bebel, Engels, and Zetkin, socialist parties of the First and Second Internationals came to realize that the cause of the women's movement was just and to accept autonomous women's organizations. The Third International, or Comintern, although it initially claimed to liberate women “not only on paper, but in reality, in actual fact,” treated the inequality of women as a secondary consideration. Focusing on production and labor conflict, the Comintern paid attention only to women's exploitation by capital to the extent that “by the end of the 1920s, any special emphasis on women's social subordination in communist propaganda or campaigning came to be regarded as a capitulation to bourgeois feminism.” Leftist women activists lost their organizational autonomy and had to work under the supervision of their national communist party

Bourgeoisie · Communism · Dissent · Feminism · Left-wing politics · Petite bourgeoisie · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Proletariat · Socialism · Sociology · Gender Studies · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Turkey's Politics and Society