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Aliabad Women: Revolution As Religious Activity, Mary E. Hegland

Faculty Publications

An apparent paradox of the Iranian Revolution has been the tremendous participation of Iranian women in the revolution, in terms of the numbers of women who were active in demonstrations, contrasted to the subsequent setbacks in the position of women in Iran and their decreasing participation in public life. In this chapter, I argue that the great majority of women participating in the revolution did not consider their actions to be outside of traditional social, cultural and religious parameters. Neither did they expect their participation in the revolution to be the first step in gaining improved status and more important …