State/religion: rethinking gender politics in the public sphere in Iran

Gender politics and the public sphere have been two key areas of intervention on the part of both the secular Pahlavi monarchy of Iran and the religious government under the Islamic regime. One of the consequences of Reza Shah's modernising project, which allowed for more open and progressive gender norms and gave women access to education, work and other opportunities, was the alienation of the vast majority of conservative Iranian families who no longer recognised the new secular public sphere they found outside their door. Unsurprisingly, while a small number of Iranian women managed to benefit from the changes that were supposedly enacted for their benefit, for the vast majority these reforms were hardly liberating and family life remained fairly traditional.