Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Nevertheless, men openly
practice it, justifying this by religious doctrine.
Islamist discourse, especially in Uzbekistan, rep-
resents men as social, political, economic, and spir-
itual leaders for both nation and family, while
women are portrayed as subordinate to their hus-
bands, physically and emotionally dependent on
them, owing to their supposed bodily frailty and
weakness. Women are strongly encouraged to
withdraw from the workforce into dependence.
Some accept with relief the chance to terminate
their labor burden but the more educated are
appalled and resist.
While Islamists preach male dominance, many
women seek greater equality in the home, and bat-
tle to educate their daughters, backed by women’s
non-governmental organizations that campaign for
greater social equality. Even women who generally
favor traditional gender identities have expressed
dislike of current trends, especially polygyny.
Thus, the post-Soviet family is becoming a locus
for struggle not just between men and women but
also among different schools of thought – the tra-
ditional, the religious, the Sovietized, and the
Westernized. The first two are based on differing
interpretations of Islam, but even those favoring
the last two still accept the importance of religious
principles.Bibliography
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Women reading the Quran, Lahore 1997.Colette Harris164 family: modern islamic discourses
Iran and AfghanistanIran and Afghanistan are neighboring Muslim
countries with long historical ties that evolved
somewhat differently in the course of the twentieth
century. They have had divergent encounters with
modernity, and varied levels of socioeconomic
development (urbanization, industrialization, class
formation) and state capacity. Yet in the late twen-
tieth century, both countries experienced revolu-
tions and religio-political conflicts in which
discourses about women, gender, and the family
figured prominently.iran
The Iranian Revolution against the Shah, which
unfolded between spring 1977 and February 1979,
was joined by countless women. The large street
demonstrations included huge contingents of
women wearing the veil as a symbol of opposition
to Pahlavìbourgeois or Westernized decadence.
The idea that women had “lost honor” during the
Pahlavìera was a widespread one. The Islamists in
Iran felt that “genuine Iranian cultural identity”
had been distorted by Westernization. Islamists
projected the image of the noble, militant, and self-
less Fà†ima – daughter of the Prophet Mu™ammad,
earlier popularized by the late Islamist scholar ≠Alì
Sharì≠atì– as the most appropriate model for the
new Iranian womanhood (Tohidi 1994, Najmabadi
1994).
Such views shaped the new Islamic regime’s poli-
cies and laws on women, gender, family, and reli-
gion. The 1979 constitution spelled out the place of
women in the ideal Islamic society that the new
leadership was trying to establish: within the fam-
ily, through the “precious foundation of mother-
hood,” rearing committed Muslims. The Islamic
Republic emphasized the distinctiveness of male
and female roles, a preference for the privatization
of female roles (although public activity by women
was never barred, and women retained the vote),
and the socially valuable nature of motherhood and
domesticity. £ijàband sex-segregation in public
spaces were made compulsory, and certain fields of
study, professions, and occupations were decreed to
be off-limits to women. With the abrogation of the
Pahlavìstate’s family law, the Islamic state lowered
the age of marriage for girls to puberty, made access
to contraception difficult, reinstated polygyny, per-
mitted men the right to easy divorce (but all but
denied women the right to divorce), and granted
men total headship over families, including sole
custody over children after divorce, and the right
to “discipline” wives and children. Wives were