диссертация (1169135), страница 24
Текст из файла (страница 24)
Theencounter between traditional and modern meanings of female sex is not limited tocurrent Iran. Since the arrival of enlightened ideas during the last century, Iranianwomen endeavored to modify the traditionally discursively determined meaningsof womanhood. The body of female sex has been the very cite of power challengebetween the traditional Islamic culture and claims for modernizations. Both haveattempted to impose regulatory norms on female sex to give meaning to theconcept of womanhood. Nevertheless, women have their agency in altering mostof the meanings attributed to their gender and establishing the new meanings asnorms.The author, considering the authoritative significance of Islam in thesociety, examined different interpretations of Islam in different discourses to101demonstrate how each interpretation marked the border of their accepted femaleidentity and out-group identity.
The traditional fundamentalist approach defineswomen as essentially incompetent both mentally and physically. While women'srole is limited to household chores and motherhood, their social presence willidentify them as abjects. This approach resists any modern cultural and socialmodifications and adheres to traditional interpretations of Islamic instructions.Development of traditional moderates' approaches coincides with socioculturaltransformations of 1960s. Believing in the equal nature of male and femaleidentity, they had a positive view on women's social and cultural activities.Nevertheless, they insisted on physical, mental and psychological difference ofmen and women. Late 1990s faced a reformist social changes that influencedreligious authorities view on women. These traditional reformists, while stillinvoking to Islamic texts, sought to reform Shiite perception of women's identityand social activities.
Valuing the identity of women, they acknowledge the equalnature and capability of men and women. Reinterpreting the Islamic texts, theyemphasize the reinforcement of women's social and culture activities. Modernistapproach also believes in difference between men and women, however, thisdifference does not cause any social or cultural inequality. Emphasizing the factthat Islamic jurisprudence is bound to its social and historical context, theymaintain that our current society needs elites to figure out current social changes.So that in the same way that Prophet Muhammad reformed his current age, we canreform our age with moral instructions align with egalitarianism.It can be said that any religious interpretations of Islamic texts are under theinfluence of social and cultural discourses.
Any religious knowledge produced byits current discourse, at the same time influences the very society from which itoriginates. Exploration of historical changes of social and cultural aspects ofIranian women's life reveals that both the transformational course of religion andsociety reflect each other. The fundamental religion marked the in-groupidentifications as veiled women, in contrast to socially and culturally active female102identity defined by moderate religious perspective. This moderate religious viewthat has been the ideological base of Iranian revolution, therefore it still survives.The Reformist approach, which has emerged recently, produces female identitiesthat are equal with men in respect to their social rights, with the least differencebetween men and women.
Though this approach remains marginalized, womenshow more tendency to them. The Modern approach to women with its westernbased ideology has not been able to have an especial place in traditional Iraniansociety which is in transition to modernity. Since this approach is not defined inthe country's official ideological framework, those following it are identified asdefiant abject or out-groups.Throughout Iranian history, inequality of men and women and itsinternalization in social common sense, as well as the long lasting patriarchalcultural tradition of Iran and their official excuses invoking to religious readings,and women's low level of social knowledge and their less social presence hasconfirmed marginalized identity of women.103CHAPTER 2MANIFESTATION OF TRADITIONAL AND MODERN CULTURALIDENTITY OF IRANIAN WOMEN2.1.
Iranian Women's Cultural Identity Represented in their BodiesIranian Women's Cultural Identity Represented in their Bodies during the Era ofPre-ConstitutionalismBody as a natural and biological entity seems to have no association withculture, in regard to the contrasting binaries that nature and culture occupy in abinary structure. Whereas, the very naming of that natural body as male or femaleburdens it with the society's expectations of a viable male or female.
While a babywith no understanding of its gender fails to be identified, his or her body will beengendered to have an identity. Therefore, body represents a society's definitionsof viable identities. Here, Iranian female body is studied not in its physical andbiological sense but in its representative signification of social construction. Theanalysis is from the perspective of Butler's ideas on materiality of body andperformative theory. In this part, the author is reflecting on the way that differentdiscourses of pre and post constitutionalism as well as the current domineeringdiscourses have given meanings to female body.
The transformation of Iranianwomen's cultural identity is associated with the way the regulations imposed onfemale body by different discourses to formulate her gender. The accepted genderidentity in each discourse identifies her with that particular discourse, therebydefining her cultural identity.According to poststructuralist ideas of Judith Butler, body is regulated bythe discourses that influence the individual's performances such as bodywork, and104formulates her identity. Gender is "an identity instituted through the stylization ofthe body and, hence, […] bodily gestures, movements, and enactments of variouskinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self”323.
Therefore, body failsto be a natural entity rather it is discursively shaped. Physical body beingmaterialized by the discourse, has the agency to maintain the persistence of thediscourse or subvert its norms through performances.Iran's encounter with Western ideology as well as its science andtechnology, during Qajar dynasty, challenged its conventional ideology to give riseto modernization. The westernized modernization was "determined to closelyimitate Western model in creating a new state and economic structure" 324. Thisimitation, which was a secularization project from the early stages, involvedIranian women's question who had been controlled by Sharia325.
The conflictbetween the traditional religious institution and secularized modernizationrepresents itself in different aspects of people's life. Here, the way that these twodiscourses competed to formulate female body is discussed. Female body as thebearer of signals that represents the society's hegemonic culture might representand repeat the established norms or defy them through different performances.The seclusion of women in pre-Qajar era "continued and strengthened underthis dynasty".
A woman's body as privacy of husband was kept away from theview of stranger men. "Iranian women were hidden physically behind walls andveils, their bodies and voices associated with enclosure"326. Women were excludedand secluded form "the public domain". The high walls surrounding the housewere not sufficient. Inside the house, they were kept in an interior section called323Butler J. Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory. TheatreJournal, Vol.
40, No. 4, 1988, pp. 519-531.324Bashiriye H. The state and revolution in Iran, 1962-1982. London: Croom Helm ; New York : St. Martin'sPress, 1984. pp. 58.325See: Afary. J. Sexual Politics in Modern Iran. Cambridge University Press, 2009. 444p.326Millani F. Words not Swords. Iranian Women Writers and the Freedom of Movement.
New York: SyracuseUniversity Press, 2011. p. 120.105"andaruni", that depending on the wealth of the owner was separated by a "simplecurtain, a courtyard, or a very beautiful garden327".The bodies sexed as female were silenced and controlled by maleguardianships. Arranged marriages by families in early childhood of girls werevoid of any romantic love. Marriage was primarily for the purpose of procreationand hence, the husband would never lose any opportunity to enjoy the arms oftemporary wives (sigeh).
Legally a man, depending on social status and financialcapacities, could have limitless temporary wives for some hours or years. Thesewives served them sexually and brought them children, or they served in themaster's house as a maid328. The harems of the royal court witnessed abundant ofpermanent or temporary wives, slaves or even boys.Women "exercised little control over their body". They significantly knewthat they have to offer their virgin bodies to the husband, who on the other handwould protect these incapable bodies. They had "learned that their sexuality andreproductivness were their only assets"329. Female body's prominent role wasfertility.
The birth of a child contributed to the preservation of marriage bond andmainly to the "perpetuation of line of decent". "With birth of her first child,especially if it was a son, a bride began her ascent from the lower end of familyposition"330. The houses without child were called khana-kur (blind house) orojaq-kur (blind hearth), implying that there is no light in the house, as there is nochild331". However, the jubilant celebration of birth of a boy usually turned to be agloomy fate for the mother of girls, who would be punished by the husband, or hisfamilies or her own father. "In some families, it was traditionally a nang (social327Ansari S., Martin V.
![](https://s.studizba.com/z.php?f=/templates/si/i/noavatar.png&w=100&h=100&t=1"){kind=avatar}
