‘Never have they had any chance to spread their wings’: The construction of agency and socio-gender identity of Iranian women

Abstract

This paper intends to study how the agency and social-gender identity of Iranian women are constructed through social-cultural-political structures. To this end, we conducted 35 semi-structured interviews with Iranian citizens, both men and women in the context of the Zan-Zendegi-Azadi (Women-Life-Freedom) movement in Iran. This study is grounded upon the main tenets of Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA), seeking to give voice to the oppressed and minorities and reverberate the alternatives to make the world a better place. Findings suggest that certain suppressive social-political-cultural structures in the course of history have largely confined women’s agency in practising their fundamental civil rights and have given them a subordinate position in society, thereby preventing them from constructing independent social-gender identity and status both at social and familial terrains. Analyses also indicated that such structures are constructed and naturalised in the course of history with political systems buttressing domination over women.