Gender Roles in Iranian Culture Through Three Stages of Era

The roles of the genders in the Iranians cultures is unique and remarkable .specially the roles of the women in these stages of era starts with different modes of life and classification of the community in last century .this means that women have been treated like second class of habitants. At the first glance we can review the role of women unfavorable and full of misery and degrading willfully by the ruling body in the country. Women were excluded and isolated from the daily life of the community of the daily activities. In the following I will discuss the gender roles in Iranian culture[which has oppression to women]in 3 periods of time; before the revolution,[during] the revolution, and after the revolution.

To review the stages women have been considered disrespectly not to have rights as the super gender (that means the man) leads to limitation of the choices of freedom of the decision to choose their out fit and dresses .According to the history of Iran, when the great king, "Reza Shah" came to power and ruled the country that was stepping backwards to 1000 years back, he started and enforced a new style of life to the women so they had their own wishes and pleasures came true. In this era most women have been through oppression were not capable to accept the new rules and freedom for women. Prior to the Revolution, three patterns of work existed among women. Among the upper classes, women either worked as professionals or undertook voluntary projects of various kinds. Whereas traditional middle-class women worked outside the home. Lower class women frequently worked outside the home, especially in major cities, because their incomes were needed to support their households. Iranian society before the Revolution practiced public separation of the sexes. Women generally practiced use of the chador (or veil) when in public or when males not related to them were in the house. In the traditional view, an ideal society was one in which women were confined to the home, where they performed the various domestic tasks associated with managing a household and raising children. Men worked in the public sphere, that is, in the fields, factories, bazaars, and offices. Separations from this ideal, especially in the case of women, tended to reflect backward upon the reputation of the family. The strength of these traditional attitudes was reflected in the public education system, which maintained separate schools for boys and girls from the elementary through the secondary levels.

Following the Revolution, the status of women changed. The main social group to come into political power--the traditional middle class--valued most highly the traditional role of women in a isolated society. Accordingly, laws were enacted to restrict the role of women in public life; these laws affected mostly women of the secularized middle and upper classes. "Hejab", or properly modest dress for women, became a major issue. Although it was not mandated that women who had never worn a "Chador" would have to wear this garment, it was required that whenever women appeared in public they had to have their hair and skin covered, except for the face and hands. The law has been hot among secularized women, although for the majority of women, who had worn the "Chador" even before the Revolution,

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