Since 1979, Iran has been ruled by the Islamic Republic with a policy of gender apartheid. Yet Iranian women, drawing on a pre-revolutionary history of modernizing advancement in education, work and civil society organizing, have not only resisted the regime's policies on their sexuality and rights in marriage and the family, policies of mandatory hejab, gender segregation, controls on movement, work and political leadership, they lead the broader dissent and movement for a democratic Iran.  How do Iranian women resist state policy through their everyday personal acts, including online? How do they organize collectively?  What are their challenges?  How does technology – and especially social media – advance their discourse, campaigns, and organizing?  What is the role of public education and civic awareness in their struggle?

Speaker
Mariam Memarsadeghi, mariam@eciviced.org, is co-founder and co-director of Tavaana: E-Learning Institute for Iranian Civil Society, www.tavaana.org/en, a multi-platform civic education initiative that provides Iranians throughout the country with free, open-access learning opportunities in women’s rights, democracy, digital safety, technology organizing and more.

Women’s Rights Research Seminars
The Women’s Rights Research Seminars at Oxford was founded in 2009 with the initial aim of directing interdisciplinary scholarly attention to the legal status of women in Iran. Since then, the research group has broadened its purview to the rights of women in the Middle East, covering topics such as the politics of fertility, women in ethnic minorities, and the treatment of women in states governed and influenced by Islamic law and jurisprudence. WRRS welcomes seminar and paper proposals from any discipline.