Feminine

I have started to write a brief history of women’s effort to talk about their sexuality, sexual desire and sexual demands in my Persian weblog.

As I told in my last post, Iranian female weblogers have already started to talk about their bodies and their sexual appetites.

I think writing about historical background of these demands would be useful to learn more about what happened  during these years which led to what we are seeing today

The historical back ground of the issues  usually is ignored by the people but I think it is very important to know it  and therefore to find out the bases of some of the social problems and social obstacles.

First part that I have explained is the  Sexual Revolution of the late 1960s onwards.

If you have any idea, you are very welcome.

It is a hot subject, nowadays, on Iranian women’s weblogs. Talking about their body, their body desires, their sexual rights and their joy of sex.

These women say that it is their right to talk about their desirable sexual relationship;It is important to love their body;it is much more important to push back the patriarchal discourse about sex and sexuality which is the dominant discourse in Iran.

I am happy to see that women started to break these taboos, at least in their weblogs and websites. However, they are a lot of people who are against such kind of issues. They call these women pervert and call their act, promiscuity. It is intolerable for them to hear a woman talking about her sex and her sexual desire.

They call them whore,because they think that they can shut them up by humiliating them. But the reality is that these women began to talk about their sexual rights as a basic right that they should gain. They want to show that they are not any more ashamed of their body;that they have right to enjoy their sexual relationship.They demand their partner to listen to them and to know what they like and what they don’t like.

In Iran, there is not any education about sexuality,not officially nor unofficially. The family do not like to talk about these matters with their children.Government prefers not to talk about it, to keep the society “pure”.These are dangerous topics to talk about in a traditional and Islamic country, but the female weblogers want to talk about it.
Any sexual relationship out of marriage is crime and would face sever punishments, but the reality is that there are a lot of Iranian boys and girls who have sexual relationship before marriage.

Some of these Iranian female weblogers who write about sex in their websites are single, however most of them write with pseudo-name, but some, like myself, write with their real name.

They are some teenagers who have written in their weblogs that they are learning so much of these writings and discussions and it makes a hope. The hope that next generation is more aware of its rights than mine.

I am happy that as an activist can see such results.

Three days ago, most of women’s movement members in Iran were shocked after hearing the news: Zanan (Women) magazine is banned by the Commission for Press Authorization and Surveillance.

Zanan was the only feminist Iranian magazine which tried to carry on its publishing notwithstanding all of the political pressure during the last 16 years.

Zanan magazine, for me as a woman activist was the first inspiring journal to find out my way as an activist and a feminist. It was Zanan that taught me what the women’s right is. By Zanan, I found out and learned about the unjust women’s statute in my country.

Now, another women tribune is shut down by government. It is said that Zanan is closed because of publishing the feminist issues which are against bases of Islam and because it talks about violence against women and unfair codes.The main reason to ban the magazine, mentioned by government, is that Zanan offers “ a sombre picture of the Islamic Republic” !

Nowadays,it is really hard to be a women activist in Iran but I am sure that all of the women’s right defenders in my country never give up their efforts to make a better condition for Iranian women.However it is disappointing that Iranian government can not tolerate any different voice.

Relevant News:

Iran bans women’s magazine

Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) is launching the Global Campaign to Stop Stoning and Killing Women!  Following the International Day Against Violence Against Women, on 26 November 2007 WLUML will launch the campaign at Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Women Living Under Muslim Laws is launching the Global Campaign to ‘Stop Stoning and Killing Women!’ to end the persistent misuse of religion and culture to justify killing women as punishment for violating the ‘norms’ of sexual behaviour as defined and imposed by vested interests. This Campaign is inspired by and grows out of women’s struggles in their own locations to combat various manifestations of this phenomenon, for instance in Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran and Nigeria.  The Campaign will support and enable women’s rights advocates, national and transnational women’s movements to resist those forces which politicize and mis-use culture and religion for subjugating women and the abuse of their human rights.

The Campaign to Stop Stoning and Killing Women is initiated by a group of activists, lawyers, journalists, and academics, who are committed to ending the stoning and killing of women. Stoning to death is a legal form of punishment for ‘adultery of married persons’ (zina al-Mohsena) in Afghanistan, Iran, Nigeria (about one-third among 36 states), Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates. Recent cases of stoning by state authorities have mostly occurred in Iran, where stoning is not limited to ‘adultery.’ Elsewhere, such as Pakistan and Iraq, incidents of stoning have tended to be carried out by communities, rather than the state. In Nigeria and UAE, sentences to death by stoning have been overturned after strong international protests.
Women constitute nearly all those condemned to death by stoning. Why? Because discriminatory laws and customs almost always assign more guilt to women than to men in any manner of action that is seen as violating ‘norms’ of sexual behaviour, especially any instance of alleged sexual relations outside marriage (zina). Men are entitled to marry more than one woman and can use this justification for sex outside marriage. They are also more mobile and can more easily escape punishment.
In many other countries, women may also be killed by their own family and community, should they be accused of contravening sexual mores, including accusations of committing zina. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions, so-called ‘honour killings’ (or rather, dishonourable killings of women) have occurred in countries as diverse as Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda and the United Kingdom.The increasing trend to control women’s bodies is also evident in countries where women are not stoned or killed, but are whipped for the same alleged ‘crime’ of zina for example, in parts of Indonesia. The Global Campaign to Stop Stoning and Killing Women urges the United Nations to investigate these serious infringements of International Human Rights Law and the international community to send a clear message that it is unacceptable for women to be tortured and killed.

For further information please see the attached documents.

In solidarity,

WLUML
International Coordination Office

 Update:

Tha government stopped implementation of Delaram’s sentence for a while.( Source: Radio Zamaneh)

When I am in a meeting which there are some of the feminist activits around the world, I become more energetic and more enthusiastic to do something important, to pace a bigger step.But, when I look to the situation of women’s activists in my country, Iran, all of my energies vanish suddenly. When I see that a woman activist is arrested and is sentenced just because she was participating in a calm demonstration,it make me frustrated.

Delaram Ali, one of the Iranian women activist have to go to the jail  asap because her presence in a demonstration last year. Because she was trying to aware people about the discrimination existing in Iranian society against women. Because she wished to eliminate the unequality among women and men in her country.

Delaram is the representative of Iranian women’s activist, us, that are striving to achieve a better, equal and happy life for women in Iran. But she will be imprisoned. Why? because goverment think her activites is against “national security”. I do not know what this “national security” is but I know most of the time the human rights and women’s rights activits are silencec in the name of it.

We should not let it happens not for Delaram, Not for anyone women and humen rights activist.

Then Please sign the Petition.

The last news are not the good ones. Some of the arrested women are in bad phiysical condition and prison authorities don’t care.

Last News:

Three Women taken to Evin Criminal Ward, Beaten   Women’s Field

Some of the Arrested women are not in good condition 

 Relevant:

Human Rights Watch demands immidiate release of women’s rights advocates

Brief Interview with Parastoo Dokouhakie after Release

Eight Women Released, 24 Women on Hunger Strike, One in Solitary Confinement  Women’s Field

The eight women who were released today confirmed that the 24 women
who are still in section 209 of Evin Prison have started a hunger
strike in protest to their illegal confinement. They suspect that
other women would not be released soon.

Relevant:

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