Women's Citizenship Rights in Iran between Two Revolutions

Abstract

The main question of the present article is ‘Which logic of historical development did women's citizenship rights in Iran between the Constitutional Revolution and the Islamic Revolution follow?’ Does the course of events represent temporary movements or are they part of a historical trajectory that led to a change in the social position, that is, women's citizenship rights until the revolution of 1978? In examining this issue, the test of theory is used and Thomas Humphrey Marshall's theory of citizenship rights is applied as the theoretical framework for analysis. The research method is a historical case study. The data collection method is documentary type and the analysis method is pattern matching type. The findings of the research show that the civil rights were established in the initial form at the end of the Qajar period, and the legal provisions were provided in the first Pahlavi state and were partially established in the second Pahlavi period. In the next stage, social rights rather than political rights were put on the agenda of the Pahlavi states, which received more attention than civil rights, and then political rights were considered since the 1960s. Therefore, the historical evolution of women's citizenship rights has been in the form of civil rights, social rights and political rights, which is different from the historical experience of citizenship rights in Europe and Marshall's theory.