Moghissi, Haideh. Populism and Feminism in Iran. Cuny-Si.primo.exlibrisgroup, 2016

Hadieh Moghissi is an Iranian-Born sociologist, working as an Emerita Professor for York University in Toronto. She was also the founder of the Iranian National Union of Women, and had experienced the Islamic Revolution first hand. She wrote the academic journal, “Populism and Feminism in Iran,” which discusses the timeline of the women’s question in the country around the time of the revolution. The content of the journal addresses many instances of changes to law that had affected Iranian women, female counter-attacks of such laws, and analysis/explanation of them. Moghissi argues that the hindrance towards female progressiveness in Iran is attributed to the dictatorial power of the Islamic Regime. As such, the revolution had sparked many gender awareness ideas to fly around the country as women were being stripped of so much in society. This source will be important to include during the analysis and pre-analysis of my thesis as it shows the female reaction toward the revolution, as well as providing some reasoning as to why the Islamic Revolution changed women’s social life the way that they did.

• 1 – “Both Islamist and socialist forces engaged in frequent criticism of feminists and feminist ideas. In these areas, the left contributed to the saliency and acceptance of Islamic populist themes. So male-centered were their views of social change and their definitions of democracy that they left no space for women’s democratic rights and voices” (Moghissi 2)
• 2 – “A key factor in understanding this pattern, I will argue, is the central importance of female sexuality and sexual control in Islamic culture. It helps explain why the homogenizing forces of Islamic culture  are expressed with utmost clarity and strength in the assertion of male control and authority over women’s lives and in the uniformity of policies in the areas of women’s rights and status” (Moghissi 13).