Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• Alie Javanmardi
• Nasrolah Poormohammadi Amlashi
• Hojjat Fallah Tootkar

Department of History, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Imam Khomeini International University, ghazvin

Abstract

Feminism is one of the important social movements in the world, which was able to bring about extensive changes in the status of women, but the perception of educated people in different regions of the world about this movement has not been the same. Educated men and women of Iran were also influenced by the intellectual foundations of this movement. The main question is, what was the process of growth and expansion of feminism in Iran from the First World War to the end of the first Pahlavi? And what were the backgrounds of the formation of feminism in Iran and what were the influences of the intellectuals from the feminism movement? The current research aims to explain the feminist requests of women, the supporters, and opponents using the analytical and descriptive method and relying on library sources, journals, and publications. The findings of this study show that feminism formation in Iran were different from the western countries, and women's rights activists in Iran had their own special conditions, which were different from the situation of western women. Therefore, the feminist movement that was formed in Iran was not the same as the western movement. But due to the extensive changes in the status of women after the constitution, a quasi-feminist trend occurred in Iran, which grew after the constitution and the First World War and during the period of Reza Shah and following her trend of modernism, it progressed and continued.

Keywords

• Women
• Feminism
• Western countries
• First Pahlavi
• World War

Main Subjects

• Social history

Extended Abstract

 The growth and development of feminist ideas in Iran and its analysis from the First World War to the Second World War

Acquaintance with European culture and civilization in the contemporary era and the establishment of new schools by western missionaries and the publication of numerous newspapers after the constitutional revolution can be considered as various factors of the awareness of Iranian women in the Qajar era. Increasing communication with Europeans made intellectuals criticize the social position of women in the country and try to change their social status. After that, educated women also started looking for their lost rights. With the beginning of the Pahlavi period, the prevailing tendency among individuals and the Pahlavi government was to promote Western culture to achieve social and cultural development and most of the women's demands were in line with the demands that the government gave to women for the modernization of the country. Therefore, the idea of feminism entered Iran at the same time as the constitutional revolution, and with the establishment of the Pahlavi government, this idea continued its evolution by the feminists of this period. Feminism is one of the important social movements in the world that was able to bring about extensive changes in the status of women, the educated men and women of Iran were also influenced by the intellectual foundations of this movement. The present article is a research in response to the question that what was the process of growth and expansion of feminism in Iran from the First World War to the end of the first Pahlavi period? And what were the backgrounds of the formation of feminism in Iran and what influences have the intellectuals received from feminism? The purpose of this article is to describe the conditions and demands of western feminists in the first wave in these countries and to influence Iranian intellectuals from this current. This article tries to represent the feminist demands of women in western countries by using library resources and existing journals and with descriptive and analytical methods, to explain the most important feminist demands by intellectual men and women and opposing and supporting opinions in Iran between the two world wars.

The findings of the research show that the fields of feminism formation in Iran were different from western countries, and women's rights activists in Iran had their own special conditions, which were different from the situation of western women. Therefore, the feminist movement did not develop in Iran with the content that was formed in the West. But due to the extensive changes in the status of women after the constitution, a quasi-feminist movement occurred in Iran, which grew after the constitution and the First World War, and during the period of Reza Shah and following his modernism, it progressed to some extent and continued.

A lot of work has been done about women and their status in the mentioned period, especially the Qajar period. In the researches that have been done, some researchers have only focused on the demands of women and women's rights activists during the Qajar and Pahlavi periods. Golrang Khedevi, the author of the article "Research on the role of male intellectuals in the plan of women's rights in Iran during the Qajar period until before the Islamic revolution" was an example of these cases, which deals with the current of modernism and intellectual thinking influenced by the West and the position of women from Men's point of view from the Qajar period to the Pahlavi period has been discussed. The author of this article did not refer to newspapers, which are the main sources of this course. Mohsen Parvish and Mohsen Beheshti Sarasht have an article titled "Study of Women's Social and Cultural Demands (with emphasis on Women's Letters)" in which women's demands have been investigated in this magazine under different headings. Ahmad Alizadeh's thesis titled "Social-Political Activities of Women in the Era of Reza Shah" also examines women's associations and newspapers. Another group of authors have tried to discuss women's rights in different historical periods by surveying the wave of feminism. In addition, there is an article entitled "Feminist Movements in Iran: The Pahlavi Period" written by Hamida Sedekhi, which contrary to its title, only focuses on the legal status of women and the activities of intellectual and educated women during the first and second Pahlavi periods. Another article by Esmail Chiraghi Kotiani titled "Iranians' confrontation with feminism from Iranian feminism to Islamic feminism" has described in detail the process of the formation of feminism in the world, the demands of women in different historical periods up to the Islamic revolution in a case-by-case and briefly has explained. The distinguishing feature of this research is that it deals with the wave of feminism in Iran in the middle of two world wars and the fields of formation of feminist thoughts while comparing with western countries and the different and opposing opinions of intellectuals about feminist demands have been investigated during the research period. Also, in the conducted researches, one or two newspapers, and limited sources or a long period has been investigated. However, in the upcoming research, almost all the newspapers of the middle of the two world wars have been investigated and in addition to the opinions of famous people, the most important opinions of people who had different intellectual, cultural and social positions have been explored.

Conclusion: According to the literal meaning of feminism, we can conclude that although the fields of feminism in Iran were different from Europe, but after the constitution and the First World War, a movement was formed in connection with the realization of women's rights, which was able to completely change the status of women. The intellectuals who commented on women in the newspapers of this period did not use the title of feminist, and later this name was given to it, but they were strongly influenced by this movement. In this period, newspapers played the biggest role in informing women. Feminist views can be seen in the articles published in the publications of this period. Some of the feminist demands of western women in Iran were accepted by male and female intellectuals, but some of these demands were not acceptable even by intellectuals like Kasravi and they did not consider it suitable for Iranian women.