Secondly, activist women in Iran occupy positions all along the political spectrum. While many are secular, the majority would identify as Muslim, and a significant portion are Islamists (which is different than being Muslim). The one thing they all share is a profound opposition to violent external intervention in their name (of the variety used by Bush/Blair et al). Furthermore, many would consider themselves “Third World Feminists”, i.e. acutely aware that imperial or neocolonial policies of intervention all too co-opt a feminist discourse and has done so for decades as an instrument of power. This was as true of Lord Cromer in Egypt as it is of Bush and the Afghan women.

Here’s Cobban from November of last year on Well-organized people power in northern Gaza

I have long argued—including in this article on Hizbullah, or this article on the women’s organizations of Hamas—that the bedrock of the political strength of well-organized Islamist organizations like Hamas or Hizbullah has been their ability to build sturdy, resilient civilian mass organizations covering all sectors of society—rather than merely their creation of the (much smaller) armed organizations whose activities seem to get most of the coverage in the western media.

Well now, the Hamas women have played a hugely important role in defusing the latest crisis in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.
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Um, I don’t think it’s ironic at all; in fact it’s perfectly consistent, considering that the “other Middle Eastern country” is not a Middle Eastern country, but a Western country, part of the West. It just happens to be located in the Middle East.

you are babbling. I have absolutely, literally no idea what you are talking about. (‘The Iranian women’s movement is not a western invention and is not a wholly funded operation the the CIA, the US State Dept. or USAID.’….er….what? Please God don’t tell me you think that I think they are). I’m not going to throw back my own experiences of Greece (and I know plenty about the country) back at YOU. Or continue to let my mind boggle about where ‘pity is contempt’ comes from. Or ask where you got the mysterious idea that I believe that Iran does not have the internet from.

And please don’t try and tell me where you got these bizarre ideas from, as, believe me, from the bottom of my heart, I truly do not care.

In any case, this is degenerating into another thread in which white males congratulate themselves on their knowledge of countries which they have not visited and whose language they do not speak, so I’m going to bow out now and let sane people like Ingrid and Katherine talk about what this thread was intended to be about (the oppression of Iranian women) and not the truth or otherwise of racist stereotypes about the Greeks.

[And I find it ironic that those CT commenters who object to the “singling out” of Iran for its treatment of women are invariably those who regularly engage in the singling out of a certain other Middle Eastern country… ]

I quoted your own insipid generalizations back at you and threw in a couple of my own- courtesy of an old friend, a woman who’s lived in Athens and all over the Gulf for 20 years. Mine at least have a little weight.

So, Iran does not have the internet? It has a large blogging community within in that a large group of literary bloggers. Tehran itself has a very cosmopolitan cultural life.

There is no need to see any debate in the comments of Laleh, Matjouz, Dan Kervick or myself. That was my point.
The risks of overstatement may, or may not, be evident in Ingrid Robeyns’ post but are front and center in abb1’s button pushing and your blather.

The Iranian women’s movement is not a western invention and is not a wholly funded operation the the CIA, the US State Dept. or USAID. Moreover it is a movement of the educated and sophisticated. It should be and can be both understood and supported. It is to be respected, as Iran itself is to be respected, not responsed to with either pity or contempt, the two choices most often in evidence in debates such as this one.

Pity is contempt. I always think that’s a obvious point but still I have to make it again and again.

I used “alleged” because the Iranian legal fundament, the Constitution, state that men and women are equal (link provided by I.R. in the main text). As told in the main text apparently the problems arise because that equality is not implemented adequately on law and institutional level. Pity, not a single example is cited in the online documents by the Iranian sources.

The “One Million Signatures Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws” is in fact a program manifesto with a very broad scope, involving social evolution of Iranian society with special accent on women. Really impressive as a vision and attempt to bring it closer to reality. Elsewhere on en.we4change.com foreign legal precedents are cited as an example to follow but again, not a citation of single article from Iranian discriminatory a law.

I do apologies for my non-racist statements about the Greeks. I promise from now on that my posts will consist entirely of wild generalisations about various ethnic groups. In fact, it should be taken as read in any of my further posts (whether I say it or not) that all Greeks are greasy foreigners who do nothing but pinch girl’s arses, that Italians are untrustworthy and excitable, that the French smell, that Arabs are all terrorists, that Jews are all mean (and probably rule the world let’s face it), and that Americans are all loud, obnoxious and all wear Hawaiian shirts without exception.

‘Arabs with pants’? Jesus Christ.

In response to all the ‘why Iran’ question I would refer you back to Ingrid: ‘The reason why this post is not about all women in the world but specifically about women in Iran, adn in particular the women who have been arrested, is that this has happend this week, and the arrests may have been caused by a motivation to prevent Iranian women from celebrating/marking international women’s day. They have asked the women’s movements worldwide to show their solidarity, and I was hoping we could do that here at Crooked Timber too.’.

But obviously that’s just a bit too difficult for some people. Incidentally, what’s the correct racist stereotype for the Iranians, used by ‘world weary’ (white, middle class, male) travellers? Because if Iran had a ‘a bad reputation as far as women are concerned’ then that would be the point proved, wouldn’t it? I mean who needs Amnesty international when you have racism to tell you what’s true?

“But it is a member of the EC, they have the internet, Greeks are politically sophisticated…it is not in ANY sense a ‘traditional’ culture (whatever THAT ambiguous phrase means).”

That is by far the stupidest comment on this thread. Running in the opposite direction It still beats abb1 by a mile. You want to hear a the common name for of greeks made by world weary travelers?: “Arabs with pants.”
That’s my offensive comment for the day.

Let me say that I find your comments in regard of Iran and Greece highly simplified and misleading.

Iran is NOT run by “religious people” who “actually run the state in Islam”. Please return to reality. In Iran religion has large influence on state level BUT Iran is organised in issentialy western manner, with Constitution and sophisticated bodies for the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary branch of the Government. All of the members of those bodies are elected, directly or indirectly by voting system. There is a universal suffrage in Iran. For you own information, Iran is not a theocratic state in the strict sense of the word as the Theocracy mirror a divine order as an organisational model. Traditionally such states are monarchy and the head of the state serve also as the ultimate spiritual authority, the divine on earth (bizarrely, UK remain theocratic on paper: the Queen is the head of the state and the head of the Anglican Church).

Oh, and let me add, to your disappointment probably, that immediately after Chomeini rose to power the establishment of the Islamic republic was by plebiscite for all over age of (!)16 and regardless of gender.

Iran simply represent a form of governance that make Anglo-Saxon countries “reach for the Browning”. It is mostly state owned economic, with state funded welfare, muslim, and annoyingly with legitimate form of Government. All in all, worst than Cuba.

I am inclined to think that a dialogue with Iran, complemented with free flow of cultural exchange would have benefited Iranian women as well. The way Iranian state exist today – governance, economics, education, science and healthcare suggest that Iranias are inclined to implement Western models.

Classical Antiquity was some time ago I believe… It did not invented (Western) modernity strictly speaking. Modern Greece is shaped to a significant degree by the Christian Ortodoxy, arguably the most rigid form of Christianity; and the modern Greek statehood was build upon rampant chauvinism which, of course, did not exist in Antiquity.
The example I cited about arranging marriages in Greece has nothing to do with the lack of sophistication or economic status. On contrary, apparently the practice goes hand in hand with them. In addition, in families with two children of opposing gender, the boy more often than not gets a higher and better level of education; homosexuality in the Western sense – as an identity, not just as a practice – still evoke markedly hostile reaction in Greece; and the macho and sexist culture there remain surprisingly vital.

An apology to Ingrid Robeyns and the rest for the not directly relevant post.

My post should not be read as an attempt to implicitely say that Iran is the worst possible place for women to live – I have no reason to believe this, and I think such a statement would be rather pointless too. My post is simply a response to the call of the Iranian women’s movement to spread the news about what has happened, since that is part of the strategy that they have decided to follow.

Anyway, I think I now have said more than enough in justification for why I have written this post – I feel like I’m starting to repeat myself…