A religious scholar and author has said: “The ideological view of women’s issues has led to a special interpretation of women, life and freedom, which today we are witnessing it in its political and social amplitude; “Woman, life, freedom” is a male slogan.
According to Jahan Banou, Meysam Mahdiar, religious scholar and author said: “The ideological view of women’s issue has led to a special interpretation of women, life and freedom, which we are witnessing today in its political and social amplitude. “Woman, life, freedom” is a slogan benefiting men.”
Following the recent social events, we witnessed the highlighting of the issue of women and hijab and the connection of these two concepts with protesting on social media. Therefore, an Iranian cultural media agency organizes a series of workshops with the aim of reviewing the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom” to explain the relationship between the claim of this slogan and the purpose of its design. In these workshops, experts explain their opinions regarding this matter from a specialized perspective.
Under the analysis of “Woman, Life, Freedom”, Mahdiar went through its theoretical foundations in Western societies and the historical course that this phrase went through, the developments and confrontations that took place with it in the West itself. In the end, he gave explanations regarding the way out of the problems caused by the capitalist view of women, the text of this is as follows.
The position of “woman” in the eyes of capitalism
In the westernized view, women are invested as a driving factor of modernity, and therefore many authors and intellectuals have said that modernism has a feminine aspect.
Bringing up the issue of “women” in our country is not limited to recent events and has been a topic of discussion for a long time. Modernism in Iran entered the cultural section of this country from the constitutionalization era and in two ways, soft i.e. in the form of changing the values of Iranian society and hard i.e. in the form of authoritarian changes such as the plan to ban hijab (in the time of Reza Pahlavi the 1st) and land reforms which aimed to change our traditional social structures; these were all followed up. Today, however, with the emergence of new communication technologies, especially visual technologies, the issue of the body and physicality and “self”-showing has taken on a greater factor and led to the expansion of western capitalism perceptions of women and femininity in our society.
Capitalism has economic, cultural and social dimensions. In the economic dimension, capitalism is linked with the discussion of women in two ways; one in the field of “manufacturing” and the other in the field of “consumption”. Since the capitalist system is based on production, when you can bring more producers and labor into production, you will definitely make more profit. Since women are more sufficient when it comes to their payment( from capitalists point of view), that’s why their presence is considered one of the most important assets in the capitalism system.
Consumer society is the product of the consumerization of women
In the field of consumption, women are considered by capitalism due to their biological, mental and psychological characteristics. The consumption of women helps the society to consume more, and for this reason, women are considered an important factor in advancing the goals of capitalism.
It can be said that in late capitalism, production has become more for males and consumption has become more for females. Capitalism ideology says that production is something that requires more energy, order, administrative and economic frameworks that are usually less suited to women’s spirits. Since the work environment in the capitalist system is a male environment, women who want to be present in the work environment must appear within the framework of male attitudes.
Capitalism also has an anthropological or cultural aspect. Capitalism is based on liberalism or individualism, which places a kind of humanism and human-centeredness as a criterion and axis, and ultimately leads to the expansion of individualism and the atomization of society. When the society becomes atomized, the consumption increases as a whole and affects the social institutions as well. The more collectivist social institutions are weakened, the more suitable subjects are provided for capitalism.
For this reason, the capitalist ideology has always been in conflict with the congregations, including the family. So, individualism is one of the most important cultural strategies of capitalism, which leads to the weakening of the family. With the weakening of a family, the woman is removed from those traditional communication frameworks and becomes an individual being who can be used as a subject of production or consumption by capitalism.
“Classical Feminism”
In the West, from the 18th century onwards until a few decades ago, we were faced with different feminist approaches such as the liberal approach and the Marxist approach. In one sentence, I must say that “making women look like men to become a useful and effective workforce” has been the most important strategy of “Classical Feminism”.
Of course, these tendencies did not remain only in studies and turned into social currents, political strategies and changing laws so that women can function fully and effectively as a workforce like men in employment and production. This framework and strategy has had consequences. One of its most important consequences is the weakening of the family institution, which has caused many cultural and social damages. This issue has caused a rethinking of these approaches and concepts in the West within the past few decades.
In classical feminism, the main effort was to say that a man is the standard of a complete human being in the field of production and society. Therefore, considering the man as an ideal example, they criticized the situation of women. They believed that because women cannot appear in the social arena like men to work and earn money, then the status of women is unequal and they are in a position of oppression. It can be said that they somehow imposed on women that the female gender is weaker than the male gender, while its not.
Therefore, they said that we should save women from this oppression, so that they can act like men. The name of this strategy can be called “Feminism Correspondence”, which sought to remove obstacles for women to be more similar to men.
The West and the End of “Classical Feminist”
But in the past few decades, due to the consequences of this approach in the field of population, family, social relations in cultural, psychological and economic aspects, it has been reconsidered in Western countries.
In the new strategies presented, it is said that women do not need to be exactly like men, and men are not the standard at all. They believe that a woman has her own characteristics; for example, her body or her natural features are different, and these differences give her different roles, and those roles can be an ideal position, also it is not necessary for women to become like men and be placed in a masculine position. Here the idea of ”Feminist Diversity” was formed according to the view that women are different from men and should have different roles and approaches. In this way, the differences between men and women were recognized and different trends were formed. One of these tendencies is the “ethics of care”.
The ethic of care says that men have a hard, rough and structured mentality and are more logical mind than women, and women have more of a caring mentality, that’s why they can be mothers. The most important place where female care is highlighted is within the family environment and the upbringing environment. Therefore, according to this point of view, a woman at home has an economic value and should be respected.
According to this idea, it is possible to pursue the insurance of housewives and provide the necessary facilities for these women to benefit from their rights and their needs. For example, you can provide them with life insurance and allocate income depending on their level of activity.
Iranian feminism and the understanding of women in the framework of Capitalism
Unfortunately, most of the feminist tendencies and currents that are active in Iran are related to “Feminist Correspondence”. That is, the classical currents that basically understand women in the framework of capitalism. The concern of Iranian feminism, following classical western feminism, is to remove all obstacles on masculinizationing women, whether in the field of clothing, economic and social fields.
Furthermore, it also does not pay attention to the fact that during these changes, the fourth wave of feminism studies has been formed in the West. For example, in these studies, the issue of motherhood is a fundamental issue and women are considered to have a right to motherhood, which the society should recognize and help.
What is happening in Iran, is an ideological effort that ignores even the major changes of the West in the discussion of women’s studies and feminist movements and only reproduces the ideas of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, which are oriented towards liberal capitalism. The slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” can be criticized from this point of view.
Freedom in the direction of capitalism and liberalism, although on the surface it wants to free women from the bondage of tradition, traditional institutions and the family, it brings people into the captivity of capitalism, without the subjects of having such an orientation of even being aware of this issue.
When the criterion is masculine, the hijab becomes masculine, and men’s clothing becomes the criterion. The type of angle of looking at the women’s issue is influential in the direction of demands and slogans, and in order to analyze this slogan, we must pay attention to its foundations and the historical course that this slogan has gone through, the developments and confrontations that have taken place with it in the West itself, and then using the capacities and facilities that we have in our tradition, history and religion we have to raise awareness and design a change to social structures. Iranian feminists are still in the mood of classical feminism and do not allow new trends to be planned in Iran.
Last year or the year before, I focused on what literature from the fourth wave of feminist studies was translated or used in Iran, but I didn’t see any translation or authorship in this area. While in the classical trend, there are thousands of books, articles, speeches, lectures and interviews. Practically, discussion from other angles is not allowed, and this ideological view of the issue of women has led to a specific interpretation of women, life and freedom, which today we witness its political and social domains.
“Woman, Life, Freedom” is a male slogan.
“Life” in the liberal approach is actually identified with a type of individualism, while “woman” and “life” with the collectivist approach gain meaning and value in a social and historical institution such as family. But Iranian feminism pursues the strategy of making women more similar to men under the influence of classical feminism.
For this reason, the slogan “woman, life, freedom” has a masculine standard, and because it sees freedom as masculine, it tries to bring women closer to those masculine standards. For this reason, hijab becomes an issue for them, that is, because men do not have a cover like women, then they see hijab as a compulsion.
In the West itself, the capitalist view of women has had consequences on people’s lives, mental health, and social relations, and this has led them to the conclusion that they should have reflections and revisions on their own ideologies.