Gender Politics in Iran and the Last Forty Years: Eleven Stories

2019 marked the fortieth anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. Yet the turbulent events of late 2019 and early 2020 are stark reminders that Iranians continue to resist for their liberation. These events once again confirmed that the history, legacy, and freedom dreams of the 1979 Revolution are still bitterly contested, forty years later. Since the very beginning of that uprising, the status of gender politics and its relationship to the revolutionary project has been a site of debate and contestation both among revolutionary actors and outside commentators. Unlike previous journal special issues marking anniversary moments of the Iranian Revolution, this collection of essays, art, and creative writing emerged over the course of conversations in 2019 that centered projects of gender justice, women’s leadership in popular struggles, and other forms of feminist political work which are a major force of societal transformation in Iran.