Iranian women ‘s struggle on the eve of International Women’s Day
The 20th century was the era of both the formation and escalation of women’s liberation movements in course of realizing women’s equal rights in all of its aspects, to put an end to gender discrimination. It was for these struggles that despite major hurdles on its way, women’s equality could take steps forward.
From the 1908 strike of women workers of a textile factory in New York, where women protested against working conditions, which turned to a symbolic day for women’s equality movement, up to now, a long path has been paved. But, unfortunately, the achievements are not the same everywhere in the world. In this regard, we review the situation of women in Iran on the eve of the International Women’s Day.
After more than a century of struggle for equality, Iranian women are still suffering from gender discrimination and violence against women. Their status-quo under the mullahs’ regime ruling Iran is less than a second-hand citizen let alone having any progress in their rights.
This year, the Iranian people, pioneered by women, will celebrate March 8 more gloriously than any other time. Because the world, especially in this region, is gestating a great change that definitely, heralds a new era.
In the center of these great developments in the Middle East, women, with their courageous and self-sacrificing struggles against despotic rulers, pave the path towards freedom and equality.
Meantime, the Iranian women have won the world’s praise for more than a century of struggle, with countless symbols and heroines, with fearless freedom fighters and tens of thousands of vanguard women who are the icons of courage.
The freedom loving Iranian women, in the position of leading the greatest Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), not only did not lose their hope for realizing equality and achieving their rights but also took part in the political and military fields against the Mullahs. In this way, they have presented novel role models, both for Iranian women and women in general.
So on March 8, the Iranian women will show that they will not consent to less than overthrowing a regime which is the main state sponsor of terrorism, fundamentalism, and misogyny.
One hundred years ago, Clara Zetkin, the prominent figure of the socialist women’s movement, called on women to express their solidarity with the battle against warmongering, whose main victims are women and children. She stated that the struggle for freedom without women’s participation was in vain. Clara concluded her speech with this famous saying ‘War against war’ (Krieg dem Kriege), calling for a struggle against warmongering.
And now, one hundred years after Zetkin, the Iranian women, have taken the battle against warmongering to its peak. They lead the fight against a theocratic fundamentalist regime which is the Lord of belligerency, terrorism, and misogyny.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is the leader of and the guide to the new equality movement who calls for all-out combat against religious dictatorship and fundamentalism, as the main threat of the current century. She stipulates: “Iranian women have gained many valuable experiences in their struggle against the ruling religious tyranny, which is the source of Islamic fundamentalism.”
In Clara Zetkin’s time, the struggle for freedom could not begin in the absence of women, and today women in Iran, are honored to have a dazzling history of 40 years of struggle for freedom, presenting tens of thousands of martyrs. They pave the path for freedom and equality. They incite society for a change. They promise freedom and democracy in the twenty-first century.
Maryam Rajavi says: “It should now be clear why fundamentalism focuses its wrath and violence against women more than anyone else. It is because women’s emancipation was the central theme of the demands of the enormous tide of people who sought a new order, freedom, and equality.”
Simone de Beauvoir, the famous French writer, believed that to suppress a society, the women must be suppressed; because free women can educate free children. That’s why Iran regime’s leaders have turned the subjects of women’s activities and Hijab into a political matter. By imposing reactionary patterns to the society, the mullahs have put the women in crosshairs.
Nowadays, women are seeking their fundamental rights in the forefronts of protests and uprisings.
Having women members of the MEK/PMOI as their role models; those who have said no to the misogynous laws of the mullahs regime, being tortured and executed for that, the Iranian have women actively participated in Iran uprisings especially in the last two years.
Today, the Iranian women put up the posters and messages of Maryam Rajavi, the symbol of the dedicated women of PMOI, in the streets of various cities of Iran over bridges and on the buildings. These heroine women show their determination and will to fight against the religious tyranny that has imposed discrimination against them, by setting up resistance units. The determination and will power of these women will undoubtedly lead to the overthrow of this corrupt, misogynous and medieval age’s regime.
