The position of women in an Iranian village
Afshar, H.
Women, work, and ideology in the Third World: 66-82
1985
DOI: 10.2307/1394916Document Number: 422803
The study discusses the position of women in an area where the Islamic concerns with seclusion are closely observed and where women are confined to the home or village boundaries. It is stressed that the subjugation of women cannot be eliminated through economic, legal, or institutional changes alone. If women are to achieve true emancipation they need to break free of the psychological and cultural forces that are gender-specific and have reinforced economic subjugation. As the case study illustrates, the participation of women in socially productive work may result in their further enslavement rather than in their liberation. Women may then become too valuable to educate and the money they earn may well finance the education of men. As this study indicates, rural women in Iran are particularly vulnerable to the psychology and economic control of men, which has remained unaffected by the economic independence given to women by Islamic and secular laws. This control has enabled men to benefit from the partial penetration of capital to rural areas; partial, in that it has not embraced women and has allowed men to exploit women's labour without any wage payment. Therefore, women's subordination has been intensified as a direct result of their ability to contribute substantially to the family income.