In brief. Under the Pahlavi shahs, women gained access to schools, universities, the vote and some legal protections. Gains came mostly from the state, were strongest among urban and middle-class women, and were limited by family law, the political system and the views of many religious families.
The story of women in Iran between the 1920s and 1979 is often told in one of two ways: as a march of progress, or as a story of imposed change and its failures. Both leave out a lot.
Schools and the law
In the 1930s, Reza Shah’s government opened more schools for girls and, in 1936, admitted women to the University of Tehran, as described in our article on the dress laws of the time. In the decades after, education expanded: more girls went to school, and more women went to university and trained as teachers, nurses, doctors and lawyers.
In 1963 women gained the right to vote and to stand for election. Women entered parliament, and in 1968 Farrokhroo Parsa became the minister of education. The Family Protection Laws of 1967 and 1975 limited men’s right to divorce and to take more than one wife and gave women more say in some family matters.
In 1963 Iranian women received the right to vote and to stand for office. In the following years women were elected to parliament and were appointed to government posts.
The state and the women’s movement
Women’s groups had been active since the early 20th century, writing, teaching and organising, and some had called for greater freedom well before the state took up the cause. Under the Pahlavis, independent organisations were closed or brought under state control. In 1966, the Women’s Organization of Iran was established, with government support, and it ran programmes and campaigned on legal issues.
Paidar and other scholars argue that reform for women under the Pahlavis came largely from the top and served the state’s image of modernity. As a result, women’s rights became tied to a political system that many people opposed, which affected how they were viewed afterwards.
Different lives
The change was uneven. Women in Tehran and other large cities, especially from educated, middle-class families, had the most new opportunities. In villages and poorer districts, many girls still left school early and women’s lives changed less. Many women, in all classes, remained in religious families that valued the veil and distrusted the state’s approach. Some women found a path in the professions, others in religious activism, others in politics on the left.
Limits
The vote was held in a system with limited political choice. The laws left men with much greater legal power in marriage and the family. Women’s working lives were shaped by family expectations and by what employers would accept.
How much the reforms improved most women’s daily lives is debated. Scholars differ on how to weigh legal change, access to education and paid work against the limits of the political system and of the laws themselves.
Why it matters
Looking at this period carefully shows that women were not just recipients of policy. They were teachers, writers, activists, workers and mothers who responded in many ways, and their experiences cannot be summed up in a single verdict.
Notes and sources
- Parvin Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth-Century Iran (Cambridge University Press, 1995).
- Afsaneh Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards (University of California Press, 2005).
- Nikki R. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (Yale University Press, 2003).
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