Identity and Access in Iran: Women’s Rights Before and After the Islamic Revolution

“Zaneh Rouz published the case history of a man who had a long record of domestic violence and clearly lacked the competence to take care of his children. Nevertheless, the courts rejected the mother’s plea and gave him custody; he proceeded to kill all three children. When Ayatollah Moussavi Bojnourdi, a well-known member of the judiciary, was asked to comment on the case, he replied that ‘According to religious and legal requirement the father is entitled to have custody of his children after the stipulated age. The courts can only implement the law.’”1 “A professional woman in Esfahan, married to a rich man and controlling her own income, used her own money to get her son out of the country during the Iran-Iraq war- an enormously expensive undertaking- against the will of her husband and her in-laws. Short of making a public scandal, which would have hurt him and his wife personally and professionally, the husband had no way to intervene. Control over her money not only gave the woman financial power but also the power to assert her will.”2 Despite the strict limitations placed on women by the Shi’ite regime after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, there have been many developments and positive changes in the women’s realm of civil society in Iran. Consequently, a broad range of social realitie