Webinar: Women, Power and Politics in the Middle East

Tim Eaton

Hello and welcome, everyone, to this webinar on Women, Power and Politics in the Middle East. My name is Tim Eaton and I’m a Senior Research Fellow for the Middle East and North Africa Programme here at Chatham House.

I’m delighted to be chairing this discussion on such an important, yet underdiscussed, set of issues. We saw in 2019 that women were front and centre in pop – protests across the region, as populations demanded reform and the attitudes of male-led political establishments were challenged. But with such a major set of challenges emanating from the global COVID pandemic, declining oil prices and entrenched political elites, there’s limited room for public opposition in many contexts. So, where and how does this discussion around female leadership and women’s rights fit?

So, to explore this, we are going to look at a big set of questions and discuss them. These include: how can women’s economic empowerment be prioritised and promoted? To what extent have efforts to consolidate women’s rights reached beyond elites? How can we move beyond the glamorisation of female protestors to institute meaningful gender-based – gender-focused political change in future? And in this current context, as COVID-19 accelerates digital transformation, how can virtual spaces provide new opportunities for mobilisation and inclusion?

We have a great panel, who will be looking to explore these issues, from their own experiences, in a very different set of contexts from across the region, from Kuwait, to Lebanon and Iran. I’m delighted to be joined by Dr Alanoud Alsharekh, who is the Director of Ibtkar Strategic Consultancy, also by Laury Haytayan, who is the Middle East and North Africa Director of the National Resource Governance Institute, and by Azadeh Pourzand, who is the Executive Director of the Siamak Pourzand Foundation.

So, Azadeh, welcome to this meeting. Let me start off with you and the issue of the protests. Looking at the pre-COVID-19 lay of the land, what has been the role of women in 2019 and 2020, uprisings in the region, and have there been nuances in ways in which women’s engagement with protests can be compared across different countries?

Azadeh Pourzand

Yes, thank you very much for this and an important question, I think, to start the conversation with. Well, as I think we all know, 2019 in particular was quite a year, when it came to protests and the power of collective power. And in a way, it was inspiring that even after the failures of the Arab uprisings in 2011, perhaps a newer generation still showed that they believe in collective power in the Middle East. In the world, really, but also, in the Middle East, in particular, we saw a range of countries, witnessing protests, like Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon and so on.

I focus my conversation, my points about Iran, because that’s what I closely follow. What was very interesting about the November protests, which was one of the largest protests that Iran had witnessed after the Islamic Republic, and also, one of their protests in which the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Government of Iran, showed absolutely no mercy on the peaceful protestors and, unfortunately, we had quite a high death toll and many, many arrests. What I find interesting about the Iran and November protests and the role of women is that after decades of women’s rights activism and women’s, sort of, a women’s rights movement in Iran that has been weakened by government repression, the government seem to – the Islamic Republic seem to somehow acknowledge women’s leadership in uprisings in a very peculiar way.

What they did is that they tried to vandalise women’s role as leaders in these protests by arresting, well, men and women alike, but bringing a woman, particularly, on TV con – televised confessions, saying that she had some sort of leadership, and so on. And so, they tried to, kind of, bring in leadership, from a very negative perspective, with violence. And while I would say that women were quite present and visible in the streets alongside men, leadership in such a complicated environment, where it’s really difficult to mobilise and to have, sort of, steady demands in the street, it’s very difficult to define in Iran. So, I wouldn’t go as far as leadership, not just for women, but for anyone or for any segments of the population, and more on a collective power.

And also the fact that, and I think that this may be the case in some of the other countries in the Middle East, women, Iranian women, because of the many systematic discriminations and societal discriminations that they have faced over the years, over the decades, they have a very strong under – I would say a strong movement under the skin of the country that no matter how repressive one President is over another or one era over another, the movement somehow continues. If it has to attend to economic challenges, it attends to economic challenges. If it has to attend to structural and legal changes, then it does so. If it becomes a politicised movement by the government, it tries to find other ways to still, you know, address issues like labour rights, and so on.

So, I would say instead of leadership, necessarily, on the street, which it would run the danger, in my opinion, to, sort of, stereotype or generalise or simplify a complicated environment, I would say that the ongoing activism of both people, women who call themselves activists, but also, ordinary women, in a country like Iran, and I think in other contexts in the Middle East other colleagues can probably address that, as well, is more of a steady and continuous leadership role that I see in the region.

Tim Eaton

Thank you very much, Azadeh. Laury, bringing you in here and, of course, widespread protest has been witnessed in Lebanon, very high profile, clearly major issues at stake, do you have thoughts or comments on the various narratives that have accompanied the widespread participation of women in the protests? And what has been the role of the media in either empowering or disempowering women in the – in relation to their role for – within the civilian resistance movement in the region?

Laury Haytayan

Yeah, so, first of all, thank you for having me, and second, let me say that change is very slow in the region, but we need to keep on fighting and not stop, ever. Yes, the 2011 uprisings or protests were a failure, maybe, yes, but that gave the momentum for other waves of protests. And I guess until the changes that we want happened, we would still have waves of protests coming in and it’s really – it was really interesting to see how women were in the frontline of these protests, at least what we’ve seen in Lebanon and in Sudan, for instance. And about the narratives, talking about narratives, it was really interesting that at the beginning of these revolutions, we had women that were used as icons to just push people to keep on going on the streets. So, we all remember the Sudanese young lady, with her finger and hand, talking to people, wearing these very symbolic clothes on her and it was viral, it went viral. And she was spreading all this – and to the other – and for people to go on the streets and for women to participate on the streets. Actually, like, in Sudan there, I think there were more women on the streets than man.

So – and then, in Lebanon, the early days, like, I think maybe on the – in the – during the first day or second day of the protest, the, what I call the ‘kicking woman’, yeah, or lady. So, a Bodyguard of a certain political figure was on the street and he was surrounded by the protestors and he wanted to attack this woman and she kicked him. It was the best kick in our lives. So, it gave the momentum for people, like, to go on the streets and fight. So, it was amazing, really, how women were really present during these protests. The best chance that we had during the revolution were prepared by women and that goes back to all these years of battling and being on the streets and the demonstrations. So, women were organised during all these years, like going on the streets, demanding for gender equality, demanding for their rights, so they were the best equipped, if you want, to go on the street with other colleagues or other fellows or the citizens to ask for what they wanted. Like, yes, gender agenda, but, again, like, broader issues.

So – and media was really, I guess, sensitive to that, right? So, we saw Lebanese media highlighting these women that were leading the demonstrations and leading the initiatives. At the same time, we saw that international media was covering, as well. So, both media, like, local and international, highlighted the presence of women at least like what we’ve seen in Lebanon. So, they were covering them in the frontlines, they were covering them when they were like buffers between the citizens or with the protestors and the Police in the streets. They were like peacemakers when there were, like, signs of sectarian divisions, if you want. So, women going on the streets, from both sides of the green line, whatever it was called during the war, and being like peacekeepers. Women that were cleaning the streets after revolution, women that were cooking for the protestors. So, all of that we’ve seen in that and it was really highlighted by media.

But at the same time, they were easy – an easy target for the Police and for the authorities. So, one major case is this – one of the protestors that was, like, chanting for the freedom, chanting for many of these issues that people wanted on the streets, so, we’ve seen Police arresting her, accusing her of collaboration. So, at the same time they were – but we – but it was like women and men, right? So – but it – but I would want in this intervention, like, to highlight the positives and the narratives, the positive narratives and all the efforts that women have put to give a nice, if you want, image to the revolution, that revolution is – could be violent, yes, maybe it should be sometimes violent, but it’s a beautiful violence, if I want to say it. Not to glorify violence, but it’s nice when you want to put people out of their jobs because they’re bad in their jobs, and this is what we have in Lebanon, bad Politicians that need to be kicked out.

Tim Eaton

Thank you, Laury, I think we all remember that kick was quite incredible.

Laury Haytayan

Oh, yes.

Tim Eaton

And you’ve mentioned there, women as icons, women at the forefront. Alanoud, bringing you in here, so, that was something which was, clearly, very prominent in coverage, very prominent in people’s understanding of what was happening, but, of course, now what we’ve, kind of, got is this global crisis through COVID and we know that a lot of governance systems in the regime are in need of reform, but have little interest in reform. So, how do you go from that, kind of, women as icons, to actually a momentum towards tangible change and how do you ensure that women’s participation in that process is not, kind of, lost along the way, as all of the other issues pop up and are prioritised over it?

Dr Alanoud Alsharekh

I think that’s a reasonable concern, how do you ensure that women who are in the forefront of movements now that the movements have settled down a bit? I know that there’s still some popular movements in Lebanon, for example, but how do you ensure that this will translate into real change? And if we look at the run-up to corona, as Laury has spoken about, women being in the forefront of political movements in Iraq, Sudan and Lebanon and even the slogan, ‘althawrat ‘anthaa’, ‘the revolution is female,’ so, we’ve feminised the entire movement. But we have to be aware that having women at the front of these movements doesn’t necessarily ensure a betterment of their rights.

So, historically, women were a part of revolutionary movements in Iran and in the Arab world, especially in the anti-colonial movements, and they had a lot of visibility, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into gender specific rights. In fact, during national crisis’s, I would argue that women’s right take a backseat, because there is this expectation that the national cause is larger than the female’s cause and it would be selfish and even an act of betrayal to demand better rights for women, while there’s a national crisis at hand. And you see this, especially, for example, with women in Palestine. So, the idea is as long as there’s a fight against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, Palestinian women shouldn’t demand for their greater rights, while there is this crisis ongoing. And this idea of demanding greater rights for women being a national betrayal or a Western import, or a threat to indigenous identity, is something that women, I think, across the – certainly the post-colonial Middle East, have to struggle with, even today.

So, this becomes especially problematic when we look at what a lot of these post-Arab Spring popular movements have resulted in, whether in terms of conflict zones, failed states or, you know, I mean, we’re still hopeful for a better future in Tunisia. But everywhere else we have emphatically failed to protect women from poverty and violence and in the case of ISIS, being sold as sex slaves again. So, we have to be really cognisant of the fact that these popular movements don’t always result – even though, iconically, women make great photo opportunities, they don’t necessarily translate to better rights for women.

So, where were women, pre-corona, making real political strides before this global economic political disruption? So, if we look at the limited opportunities available for women in the political space, like logistical, economic, social and cognitive impediments. There are no female Heads of State and whether it’s republics or monarchies, those positions are reserved for men from a certain family or a political party and that is, sadly, unlikely to change soon. So, there is a space for political participation within two spheres: state adopted gender policies that include the promotion of women in political leadership positions, whether they’re elected or appointed. And there have been recent examples of this in the UAE, in Saudi Arabia, in Lebanon, to name a few, with unprecedented appointments of female Ministers, gender quotas in federal councils and government jobs and the eradication, at least legally, of some of the guardianship-based legislations that demote women to second class citizens and disempower them.

So, this top down legislative approach, you know, it has been adopted easy – earlier, and perhaps, in the more progressive Arab states, but it only promotes state blessed or state approved female actors. Grassroots movements that highlight discriminatory laws and practices like nationality rights and, you know, protection from abuse, have become especially impacted during the COVID crisis. So, we need to ensure that the political participation of women in civil society is promoted like it is within the established political institutions, because real change in mindset, and in numbers, begins there. So, at a BBC talk last September I predicted, based on current trends and present statistics, that we would see move – women’s political participation in the Arab Middle East reach 40% in ten years’ time. It remains to be seen whether the COVID crisis will accelerate or derail that figure.

Tim Eaton

Thank you very much, Alanoud. Just one, but can you define what you mean by political participation, in that sense?

Dr Alanoud Alsharekh

Well, I mean, we see more women in political responsibility roles within states, so women in the legislature, women as Ministers. So, we – you know, I’m thinking of more opportunities for women to be involved in policymaking, so we can have a richer and more peaceful Middle East.

Tim Eaton

Right, got you, so, specifically about states, the state architecture, the representation of the population and its…

Dr Alanoud Alsharekh

Hmmm.

Tim Eaton

…positions. Okay, just a reminder to the audience that you – we’re going to be coming back to you shortly to ask for your questions, so please do send them in, as and when they occur to you. Alanoud, I’m going to stick with you, digitisation is also something which is rapidly advancing and changing the way that we do things and so, do virtual spaces provide new opportunities for de – for mobilisation and inclusion in politics? Or sometimes, are they also extending government control and surveillance that may perpetuate offline inequalities and sometimes violence against women? How do you see this area? It’s a tricky one.

Dr Alanoud Alsharekh

Yeah, well, I mean, the easy answer is both. So, the digital spaces have transformed political debates. Now they call social media the ‘Arab’s treat’, right, that’s where you go to take the pulse of the ordinary Arab citizen, the trolling and bots notwithstanding. But – and it’s created alternative outcome streams and alternative history. Citizen journalism has freed us, to a certain extent, from state propaganda, and it’s changed visibility access for disenfranchised groups, in a radical way, over the past ten years, and no doubt it will change further, as this pandemic continues.

It’s interesting for me to consider the question of new opportunities afforded by this almost complete move online, in terms of political participation. We have elections coming up in Kuwait in November and my consultancy, Ibtkar, has just completed a programme on political part – leadership and campaign management. And we had to refocus on our efforts on how we’re going to promote new candidates and especially women, solely online. It’s disheartening, because although it levels the playing field, because now incumbents and you, men and women, we’re all moving online, it makes canvassing for votes and introducing women candidates, specifically, to their voter bases, even more difficult. So, in a sense, it’s a blessing, but not if you are running for office in the near future.

Some of the other issues that concern civil societies, you know, such as lack of resources available to women who are stuck at home, with their abusers, have been magnified and gained global attention during the COVID crisis. And for example, these things translate cross-region, the issue of honour killings and in a way, because of the COVID crisis, you have a captive audience that is not as distracted by other issues offline, and that can really grapple with the inequalities that have emerged and that need to be resolved becau – before we can speak about empowerment.

So, the digital space, obviously, has become more strictly policed post-Arab Spring and this epidemic, with its tracking devices, can certainly lead to more tightening of that space. But I would argue that for women, it has always been fraught with a lot of risks. Trolling and shaming online makes Arab women particularly vulnerable and limits their participation. Their numbers are still lower than men and, you know, there’s this constant burden of ambassadorship. Women online are expected to represent a traditional, national, muted, feminised version of themselves. And I think what’s really interesting is that as women break these social and political taboos, articulate their experiences themselves and use their image and their worldview to generate income and public opinion, whether it’s as – you know, with the different roles, this new opinionated woman, I would say opinionated citizen, is like a culture shock for many people here who are just, over the past decade, beginning to realise that there’s a multiplicity of opinions and that we don’t need someone to represent us. Young people, people from minorities, they all have the same access and there’s a cross-regional celebration of women’s movements and women’s achievements, which I find heartening and a shattering of assumptions on a local, regional and international space, especially those to do with passivity and docility of Arab women.

I worry a little bit that this epidemic has rendered women visibly invisible, in a sense that the leadership, the ones that are doing the briefings and the ones that are reassuring, are male and the ones that are on the frontline, there’s a lot of women there, whether as essential workers or as volunteers, that are not given these representative or visibility opportunities during this crisis. So, I’m just a little bit worried that we’re going to fall back on this traditional idea of power, especially in times of a crisis, being male led and, you know, that we cannot be in charge of hard issues.

Tim Eaton

Understood, understood. Turning to some of those traditionally seen as hard issues, like economics, and Laury, you work in resource governance and, clearly, there are all kinds of challenges for countries in the region, in this current period, the COVID pandemic and particularly declining oil prices. Lebanon itself has, as you’ve indicated in your initial answer, a definite need to reform and is enduring a terrible economic crisis. So, with those priorities, what about – where does women’s economic empowerment fit into this? Can it be prioritised when, you know, the discussions we’re having are about saving the whole economy and the, you know, the threats to people’s incomes are so pertinent? You know, is there just a risk that in that bigger discussion, this hard issue that women’s participation or women’s economic rights get brushed aside, and if so, how can we navigate that?

Laury Haytayan

So, I want to link this question, actually, to the political econ – political participation angle, right? Because it’s – it is important, yes, to have female representation in governments, in the cabinets, etc., but I think, like, as our very dear friend keeps on telling me, we need, more than having women, we need a feminist perspective in governments, right? So, then, if you don’t have women, but at least you have a government that has endorsed a feminist perspective. So, what we’ve seen, for instance, now, in Lebanon with the economic meltdown, so, there were some goods, if you want, that they wanted to subsidise, so that they would be come cheaper for people. And all the items on the list, like, peo – women were protesting because many of the items that are, like, women’s items, if you want, were not subsidised, because men, six or seven men, or I don’t know how many men, they were deciding what are the items that should be subsidised? And women – and we, yes, it’s true, we have six women in the government, but they never raised that issue.

So, it’s not important to have women just to have the women, because what happened in the last government formation, it’s like they played the gender card and they said that, “We want six women in the government of 20,” so, almost like 30%, but we ended up having women that they don’t even – maybe they don’t have the gender agenda in their mind. So, what do I do with these six women? Yes, we had a Minister of Interior for the first time in the history of the Arab world. So, what, what did she did for women? Maybe she did, but I’m just, like, here exaggerating. The Minister of Defence, so what? It’s not important to have all this décor, all – but it is important to have this – the perspective, like the feminist perspective and when we are talking about politics.

So, that’s why I come to the economics, right? We have the – it’s right that we have difficult economic situations now in the region because of COVID-19 and because of the oil prices that were really dropped. So, the income or the revenues of governments are now dropped by some places, like in Iraq by 50%. So, you would think that that’s – this will effect, automatically, women. But one more important issue is, like, women in the for – workplace, women in business, it’s not a luxury anymore. It is something that exists, and it is part of the whole economy. I cannot say that this is a luxury product, so when I’m poor I don’t use the luxury products, right? So, you have to see it in that way. If we keep on seeing that, oh, seeing women in the workplace as something exceptional or women in business as something that is exceptional, so, then we will end up not having them as a priority. Women, as men, are today in the workforce that we have an economic problem, so we have to deal with them as equal to men. And if we are, although, having stimulus packages, we have to take into consideration, as well, women that have businesses and maybe we should, on the contrary, give more push for women in the economy and push them for that.

So, definitely, there are, like – if you want, governments should take some – put in place some laws to push for these gains that women have made. Businesses should relax, so working from home now has become the norm, right, after COVID-19, so why don’t we keep that for women, so that they continue working from home, not being able – if they are not being able to work from nine ‘til six, if we want – if they – like men. So, I’m just talking now these basic things, right?

So, I guess the most important message here is, like, it’s not a luxury, it’s a normal thing and women – so, businesses should be supported the same way that we think that we should be supporting this business or that business that is led by men. If we get to that point, I think then, we cannot – we don’t talk anymore about during crisis, women are second rank citizens again. No, they’re there. So, I think the push from civil society and women’s movement should be in that direction.

And one more thing, one idea about this working from home, right, about this digitalisation that we are talking about, and political participation. So, politics takes time and being in political parties means that you need to go and spend hours and hours, sometimes, of talking, debating, etc. And women sometimes have other priorities at home, maybe. So, now, with this Zoom, what’s happening is, like, you can be on these calls, taking them from home, participating in your political party debate. So, I think this is the – a very beautiful thing that I’m seeing, that seeing more women in the political parties participating from home, where they can take care of their kids, they can stay until midnight in the Zoom call, but if – before, it was really difficult for her to stay until midnight debating. And we know, like, Arabs on the call, no, like, we like debating hours and hours on politics, uselessly sometimes, but at least now, these women can do it, while taking care of the kids and feeding them, etc. So, I think, like, very nice things are happening. So, I just want, like, to end on a positive note all the time, so that women are, like, we are – yes, we continue fighting, but I think, like, there are gains that we should really now enforce.

Did I answer your question?

Tim Eaton

You did, yeah, you did. I think that’s also a really important point that the way, actually, that we’re all working, is transforming and it’s not clear to what extent that will remain, but clearly, some things aren’t going to go back to the way that they were. And in many ways, that’s a leveller, in terms of participation in industries, when someone doesn’t have to be in an office, in a specific location, for so many hours every day.

Azadeh, coming back to you, I think, as always, around discussions around women’s empowerment and, you know, other involvement of minorities and various things, there’s a discussion of intersectionality. And there’s, particularly, in some of the discussion around women’s rights, least the ones that I’m aware of, it’s often dismissed as an elite issue, “Oh, this is what the elites are talking about, but it’s not really what the broader population wants,” perhaps reinforcing some of the stereotypes that Alanoud was, you know, referencing earlier. So, to what extent have efforts to consolidate women’s rights reached past that elite level in your perspective – from your perspective and how have they addressed different women’s experiences in the public and private spheres?

Azadeh Pourzand

If you allow me, Tim, I just want to mention one point before answering your question, about something that Alanoud mentioned about political participation, and that just came to my mind about Iran. You know, even when we have women and they’re serving within, essentially, the government and having passed all the filters of a country like the Islamic Republic of Iran, which are plenty, and therefore, they would – essentially, these women would be one of them, if these women try to do anything remotely positive, when it comes to, you know, structural changes and so on, we see that they suddenly get side-lined and marginalised, just like an activist would.

We recently have a case of a senior level Advisor of the President – of President Rouhani, who – Shahindokht Molaverdi, who is facing national security charges because of some the bills that many of us women’s rights activists have actually criticism to even the bills that, you know, she tried to push, and that they’re not actually perfect enough when it comes to gender equality. But even for pushing such legislature, you can get in trouble, even when you’re from within the ruling elite in Iran. So, I want to emphasis on what Alanoud said that in a situation like this, we do really need to find ways for women’s participation within civil society to be further strengthened, whether in formal or informal ways. So, just that one note.

And going to the discussion of intersectionality, yes, it has been viewed, in many of the countries of discussion, that women rights is, sort of, an issue that, you know, if you are middleclass or above and if you have, you know, no other issues, then you would start to care about gender equality, and so on. And at least, in the case of Iran, you know, it’s a very – I can tell you my personal experience that what I – when I started working on these issues, I was very much focused on what we call, like, as the gender equality and the laws have to be equal. And the journey that I’ve had, it’s, kind of, brought – given me such a tour of Iran and then, as – and then beyond the region, having met the women that I have met through different conferences, through the, you know, work I have done. And that’s, actually, that’s the journey that has taught me that there’s so many other things. Like Laury was saying, the general demands that we have, and we have to somehow find a balance between remaining focused on our gender quality agenda, but also, really being at the forefront of having larger demands. Because, you know, for as long as those macro elements are not where they need to be, you know, we can’t really get to where we want to get.

What I think is getting missed when it comes to, like, Western media and the way that the Middle East gets covered, again, in the case of Iran, for instance, there is – there are so many fascinating conversations happening among women, who are active in different fronts: women’s right, labour rights, minority rights, so on. And there is – there are discussions that are very fascinating, where many of these women self-criticise their approaches and they try to really improve on them, when it comes to inclusivity, when it comes to intersectionality. They have learnings that they reflect on, but unfortunately, not – none of these get reflected when we look from the outside, on the inside, to countries that are, kind of, close to the rest of the world, and even to the rest of the region. And so, one of the things that I find fascinating is that when a country is so repressive and discriminatory against, well, every – many of its citizens, but women in particular, it creates an actual common ground for women from different backgrounds to come together, ultimately. And then, that exact coalescence around the many issues, whether, let’s say you’re a woman from a minority group, or, you know, you’re a woman struggling with labour issues, or you’re a Journalist woman facing freedom of expression and now having, you know, like, cases on top of that that, you know, you have had affairs and things like that, so, all of these things. And you’re a woman and you face these extra layers of discrimination, you coalesce, you have something – you start to learn about each other’s struggles, you start to talk. This is happening in Iran in the women’s ward of the Evin Prison right now. Women, political prisoners, are learning from each other. A labour rights union, you know, union activist is learning about women’s rights in prison. She actually came and talked about it you know. So – and then, this becomes exactly that political power that these governments are scared of.

And so, I find that – again, I am following Laury’s lead and trying to be positive, yes, we have a long way in really figuring out intersectionality, when it comes to our movements in activism, especially like you said, in the post-COVID economic situation. In the case of my country, we are an in an economic freefall. I mean, you know, we deal – we’re dealing with poverty and we will be dealing with poverty, environmental issues and so on, in a way that we have never dealt before with. But at the same time, what I see as this coalescence and this is gradual learning of women from one another, and then putting it almost immediately into action, not really waiting to necessarily become scholars of this issue, is really, for me, uplifting and promising.

Tim Eaton

Thank you very much, and now, to take some of the questions from the audience. I’ll stick with you, Azadeh, because it’s actually a direct question about Iran and we’ve been talking about policy, as well, in part of these discussions. So, the question asks whether “underlying pressure from Iranian women has led to any examples of policies or laws that have been enacted to give greater rights to women?”

Azadeh Pourzand

Yes, we have many examples of failed attempts, but I’m not going to go there. We actually have a relatively recent example of a piece of legislature that it act – it received international attention, as well. It’s basically the Nationality Law, what we refer to as Nationality Law, which means that women in the Islamic Republic, until recently, were not allowed to pass on their nationality to their children. So, that meant that if they had a husband, if they have a husband who’s not Iranian, then their children will not be Iranian. That, actually, has – well, a lot of dual nationals, let’s say Iranian-American women, Iranian-Canadian women, Iranian-European women, really celebrated this achievement, which was, again, like relatively recent, it happened in 2019, and that’s how it got international media.

But one of the biggest problems with this nationality law in the past goes back to the, sort of, the intersectionality discussion that we had in, sort of, the East part of Iran, where we have – you know, with neighbouring, with Afghanistan and Pakistan, we have Afghan migrant workers that end up with Iranian women and Iranian women who are often from a minority group, Muslim, Baloch, who are heavily discriminated against. And then they have children and these children are considered stateless, because they don’t become Iranian, that they can’t become Afghan. And so, it – we, as activists, we were hoping that it would have particular immediate benefit for these kinds of groups of marginalised women and children who, basically, had no access to education, and so on.

But unfortunately, there is a loophole in this law, where it says that for the – for – now, these children can get citizenship. However, for their citizenship to get approved, the man, the non-Iranian man, has to go through security clearances. Now, you can imagine an Afghan migrant worker going through security clearances in Iran, you know, married to a Baloch woman. So, we haven’t seen it enacted in any promising way as of yet, I would say, but it’s an example of, I think, for about four decades, Iranian women’s rights activists and, you know, the legislators that I, again, I wouldn’t call their agenda ideal, but they tried to do something about this law, worked really hard and, you know, it was a risky business, and it did have some result. The result remains far from perfect when it comes to implementation and, also, the text of the law, but we have that, yes.

Tim Eaton

Thank you very much. Alanoud, there’s a question from the audience which, effectively, explores the relationship of religious views, Islamic views, towards women and questions how, particularly, conservative values, may impact the pursuit of women’s rights. I wonder if you have any take on this, how relevant are those concerns, how much of an issue is it, and how difficult, if so, are they to navigate?

Dr Alanoud Alsharekh

So, I think this is a question that comes up a lot, the intersection of traditional values or an Islamic stance, when it comes to women’s rights, with the progression of women. But I think if we widen the lens a little bit and look at this issue, the progression of women’s rights, in the international stage, we see that most religions, and especially the Conservative or Orthodox arms of religions, aren’t particularly pro-women’s rights, anyway. And historically, even in the UK, women only gained their political rights 100 years ago, they couldn’t hold onto their property if they got married, until the Married Woman’s Property Act of 1882. In the 70s, in some parts of the States, women couldn’t even open bank accounts.

So, I think sometimes blaming Islamic values is a convenient, let’s say, umbrella for a complicated issue that’s more to do with men being resistant to power sharing and to giving up their gender-based privileges than just Islam. Having said that, I think that with the opening up of the digital space and people exchanging knowledge freely and openly and revising history, the religious knowledge that has been a stronghold of men for centuries is seeing a shift. And when the move happened to social media and religious clerics in this part of the world had millions and millions of followers, but then, they became – also, their message to do with women’s rights and to do with other aspects, became exposed as being hypocritical when they would demand that people don’t send their children abroad and, yet, they send their children to the best universities. Or demand that people send their children off to Jihad and they’re not sending their children to Jihad, and it applies to their daughters, because they have very conservative stances on women and then, their daughters are a part of an international elite and they get the access that the normal citizen, who follows them for Islamic advice, doesn’t get.

So, I think there has been a certain shift in taking their religious authority as – you know, has – having the same weight as it used to be, especially because the Arab Spring embarrassed a lot of them in their positions.

Tim Eaton

Thank you very much. Laury, we’ve got a question from Lina Khatib, the Head of our MENA Programme, so I’ve probably got to answer that, otherwise I’ll get in – ask that, otherwise I’ll get in trouble. But Lina’s asking about your experience of running for office in Lebanon and what your assessment is on the potential to crack and break through the current status quo, perhaps more broadly, but specifically for women, as well?

Laury Haytayan

Yeah, so, you know – and so, hello for Lina, so I haven’t seen her since I don’t know, like, since she was in Beirut last time. So, look, it’s a big battle today in Lebanon, right? It’s – there is a whole system that needs to be dismantled, okay? So, you cannot survive anymore with this system that is put in place. You cannot live with it, right? So, you need to dismantle it. So, dismantling it requires the energy of all men, women, young men, young woman, old men, old women, everyone to dismantle it, so it’s a big battle. What we have done, actually, in 2018, it was – there was a new wave of, we called it at that time civil society movement and people that were outside the system, that wanted to break the system, enter into it, so that they dismantle the system from inside. Because most of us were like people that were advising governments, advising Parliamentarians, working on advocacy or wellbeing, whatever you want, having the best papers put in place, etc. And we found out that these people, they’re not interested in reforms, they’re not – they cannot be reformists, because reform means that they will lose power. So, they don’t want to lose power. That’s why reform, it’s like, according to whatever suits them. So, that’s why we decided that we will take over and we’ll take over the parliament and the government, etc.

So, it was, at least for me, when I was fighting for that and I was running for election, yes, I was a woman, that was great, because it showed that women can be very powerful and they can be harsh in politics, because I was harsh. I wasn’t like, oh, I should be soft, or women shouldn’t be hard, etc., all the prejudice, no, so it was nice. I was talking about oil and gas, that oil and gas is really in danger in the country and we need people to watch it. So, even that, so, I wasn’t, like, playing the gender card, like, oh, I want women’s right, etc., it wasn’t that. So, again, breaking another prejudice and I was thinking, as a citizen of the country, that we need new blood do count – into the country.

So, did we succeed? At least we say we had one person out of this whole movement going into the Parliament and now, we have more people inside the Parliament that want to be, like, in the position. So, I think short-term you feel like, oh, very disappointed that you haven’t done – you haven’t achieved what you wanted to achieve, mid-term/long-term it pays. So, we have to be patient. Again, as I started, we have to be patient, and women have a role, like men, and women and men should fight the fight, because really, the battle is harsh, in – at least in Lebanon, and I guess, in other countries as well. Like, there is a whole problem with the system. The system, in most of the places where we had the protests, where we had the uprising, are not in favour of the people. These are a state capture – they have the state capture model, them and the elite around them, are using, abusing, misusing the resources of the country and they don’t care about the citizens.

So, what we have to do is, like, for us citizens, man and woman, fight this fight, not forgetting about, like, our – women as our own agenda, but at the same time, like, with men that are likeminded, to fight this battle. So, we’ll get there. We’ll get there. I’m not sure when, but we’ll get there. So, today, we have this opportunity in the country because it’s in complete meltdown, so we’ll have to knock down the system.

Tim Eaton

“Not let a good crisis go to waste,” as someone…

Laury Haytayan

Exactly.

Tim Eaton

…once said, I think. Okay, well, let me pitch something to all three of you. There’s one more question in the Q&A, which asks, effectively, about whether external perceptions of women in Iran, and I think you can generalise that to other countries in the region, are really that representative of what we see. And I feel, from the discussion today, we’ve distinguished between perceptions, women as icons at the forefront of a movement and, you know, an acceptable face, versus their actual role in driving those movements or formulating the demands. And then, also, on the other side, in terms of their actual role within state institutions and their ability to change, make policy decisions and change things practically for women’s lives. And so, I wonder, from the discussion, it’s a bit of an elusive concept, progress, I guess, but in some ways, what I’ve been hearing is that women have been at the forefront before and some of these things haven’t broken through. But then, in other cases, I think Alanoud, in particular, you pointed out some changes, some state-led changes, that are in train. Where should – how should we look at this issue at the moment, where are the most, sort of cause – what are the causes for optimism, what should we be looking at? And what do you think could be done more now to – what should we look – the principal focus in this time to look at? I wonder if I could start that question with you, Azadeh?

Azadeh Pourzand

Yes, sure. Yes, I mean, I think we did discuss the fact that I would say misrepresentation, perhaps, is a word to be further discussed, but sometimes things do get lost in translation and when you look things from the outside. And that has to do par – I would say partially, at least in my experience, with the fact that we are dealing with, you know, a part of the world that has lots of assumptions about another part of the world and then, so, we base our arguments on those assumptions.

For instance, in the case of Iran, you know, you either have the assumption that it’s the Islamic Republic of Iran and, therefore, everything is completely black and everything is – there is no hope, or you see it as Islamic Republic of Iran as a government that doesn’t get, for instance, a fair treatment by the West. And then you try to go from that perspective, which, essentially, becomes the offensive of government policies.

And the other thing that we miss is the fact that, like you said, history matters. In a lot of these countries, women weren’t born yesterday. Women, like Alanoud was saying, women have been part of – I mean, part of revolutions, political movements, and so on, for years. I mean, I can tell you, for instance, Iran, we had our constitutional revolution over 100 years ago, women played a very, very visible role in that constitution. Or we had family law that, you know, I mean, it had its flaws, but it was towards the right, perhaps the right direction, many years ago. So – and all of this because, it’s because of the women who worked on these issues. So, I think a lack of ignorance about history is another problem, and the fact that some of these countries are close to the rest of the world, so what you end up is a few experts who are outside and then you talk with them and that’s what you get your knowledge from.

But I would say that one thing that I have noticed is, like I just gave you an example of the Nationality Law, for instance, in Iran, sometimes we have situations where, for something that the Iranian Government, for instance, has achieved to the eyes of the world. Various UN agencies, or the UN or so on, they actually celebrated the Islamic Republic for that achievement, while we even had activists in prison who tried to make that change happen. And I think you see that in, for instance, sometimes, like, I – for me, it was most striking in Saudi Arabia, when I saw something like this.

So, misrepresentation, true, lost in translation, true, but I think to correct that, that doesn’t mean that you give them credit to the very governments that have been very repressive and discriminatory against women for very small achievements, and that is how I will end my comment.

Tim Eaton

Thank you. Laury, let me bring you in here on the same question and anything else you’d like to add. We’re down to the last few minutes now.

Laury Haytayan

Just one thing, like, about this appearance, be – and especially when it comes, again, to women representation, let’s say. Because Lebanon is one of the countries where we have the lowest female representation in Parliament and in government. So, for governments, it’s always, like, to talk to the West and to show to the West that, oh, okay, we are, like, pro-women, etc. So, they do this – these – they play the gender card, and it’s like, “Yeah, we will have six women, so then everybody will be happy with us,” but that has no impact at all on women or on the – or whatever needs to have impact on.

So, I think there is this kind of, again, a playing, if you want, with these cards, just like to please the West and just to tell them, “Yeah, we’re doing whatever you want. Oh, this is important for you.” The EU makes a statement about, like, “There is a need for women participation,” the next day they bring six women in the Parliam – in the government. How did they come, are these people a part of political parties, were they active, or just like the – she – or it’s because she knows someone that knows someone in the – that is close to the President or that is close to the Prime Minister? This is how they end up coming into the government and this is what you don’t want.

So, it’s not only, like, how the West sees us and how we play that against, like, against them, you know? We – it’s like it’s really fascinat – it fascinates me how they can manipulate. They manipulate us and now they are so bored that they want to manipulate the international community, when it comes to women and when it comes to economy. So, it’s amazing, these are, like, amazing case studies that we should learn from them. Like, I’m always amazed how they can be manipulative just to stay in power.

Tim Eaton

I think that definitely holds in other contexts across the region. I’ve seen that quite a bit in my work on Libya, certainly. Alanoud, last word to you.

Dr Alanoud Alsharekh

Well, I want to thank my fellow colleagues. This has been really informative and illuminating and I think there is a certain fetishization of the Arab or Muslim woman in Western media or Western thoughts. I don’t know if it’s a colonial throwback, but when George W Bush was doing his final tour in 2008, he stopped in Kuwait and saw eight – sorry, ten women leaders, which was an odd choice for a US President, anyway. And at the end of our closed session, he said something along the lines of, “I was told that you guys were oppressed, and you don’t seem very oppressed to me.” So, I think that, kind of, sums up this lens that Arab women are seen from. And I understand the frustration when governments do things that seem to be more vanity shaped or as femwashing or feminisation of tyranny, but we need legislative change and I’m hopeful that, whether it’s for being held accountable for a world audience or for our own domestic policies, we’re going to seeing things, as Laury said, from a more feminist lens in future.

Tim Eaton

Thank you very much and thank you to all of the panellists. I think it’s been a really interesting discussion today. I think you’ve really pushed past some of the issues on perceptions, the importance of looking at this issue more in a – in deeper ways than just a number of women and looking at, really, in terms of change and contextualising it. So, thank you very much, it’s been a pleasure to chair this discussion, and thank you for everyone for joining. And I’m sure information will be coming through to you shortly about the next members’ event, but for – on that note, I’ll sign off and say thank you. Good afternoon.

Laury Haytayan

Thank you. Bye, bye.