South Asia Bulletin, Vol. XI11 Nos. 1 & 2 (1993).
Patriarchy and the Politics of Gender in
Modernizing Societies: Iran, Pakistan and
Afghanistan
Valentine M. Moghadam
Abstract: The politicization of gender and restric-
tive laws about women in Muslim countries have
often been explained in terms of the ubiquity of Is-
lam in politics and culture.’ This paper offers an
alternative explanation, one focused on the dynam-
ics of patriarchy and the contradictions of develop-
ment and social change. Patriarchy is defined here
as a kinship-ordered social structure with strictly
defined sex roles in which women are subordinated
to men. Patriarchy persists where there is limited
industrialization, urbanization and proletarianiza-
tion, and may be legislated by the state. At the same
time, the collision of tradition and modernity and
unwanted changes, particularly in the status of
women, may result in a preoccupation with cultural
identity on the part of some social groups. In such a
context, calls may be made and measures taken to
restore women to their “proper place.” This frame-
work is used to analyze the politics of gender in
Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan during the 1980s.
The difference in the three cases is that the Afghan
state sought to undermine patriarchal structures
through land reform and changes in marriage and
family law, whereas in Iran and Pakistan the states
fostered patriarchal ideology and practices.
Introduction: Patriarchy, the N eo-patriar chal
State and Social Change
This article is concerned with the politics-
indeed, politicization-of gender in Iran, Pakistan
and Afghanistan. These are non-Arab Muslim
countries that span the Middle East and South Asia,
and have overlapping cultural, religious, linguistic
and ethnic boundaries. During the late 1970s and
throughout the 1980s “the woman question” as-
122
sumed a paramount position in political discourse,
in cultural battles and in state policy in all three
countries. In Afghanistan, opposition arose to the
new government’s decree on literacy for girls and
the reduction of the brideprice one-and-a-half years
before the Soviet invasion. In Pakistan, following
the emergence of a militant women’s movement, the
Zia ul-Haq regime enacted laws to control women
and punish them for sexual infractions. In Iran,
veiling was made compulsory and women were
barred from certain occupations and fields of study.
Why this should have occurred in the manner in
which it did is the focus of this paper. Below an ex-
planatory framework is provided which rests on
three elements: the persistence of patriarchal struc-
tures, the role of the neo-patriarchal state, and the
contradictory effects of social change.
All societies have gender systems, and gender
inequality is a universal phenomenon. Not all so-
cieties, however, are patriarchal in the strict sense
of the term, that is, in the sense of gender arrange-
ments based on patrilocal residence and patrilineal
descent. Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan belong to a
part of the world where women’s status-measured
by such indicators as sex ratio, literacy levels, edu-
cational attainment, labor-force participation and
fertility rates-is low (see Table 1). Many demog-
raphers explain fertility rates in terms of the status
of women which in turn is a function of social or-
ganization (McDonald 1985). Caldwell (1982) has
referred to the Middle East, North Africa and South
Asia as “the patriarchal belt.” Kandiyoti (1988) uses
the term “classic patriarchy” to describe gender re-
lations and the position of women in North Africa,
 Table 1: Comparative Social Indicators on Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, mid-1980s
Social Indicators Iran Afghanistan Pakistan
Population: male 25,491,645 8,170,000 50,6 14,000
female 24,365,739 7,700,000 47,058,000
(1986) (1985) (1985)
Sex Ratio (fernales pel- 100 males) 97 95 91
Cl-tian Population (%) 53 19 30
Annual Population Growth Rate 3.7 2.6 s.l
Population Age Structure (%)
0-14 years 43 46 44
15-64 years 53 52 53
6 5 f years 4 2 3
Life expectancy at birth: male 57 37 55
female 59 36 54
Crude birth rate per 1,000 41 49 46
Infant mortality per 1,000 61 190 112
Maternal mortality per 100,000 live births 120 640 600
Total fertility rate 5.6 7 7
Female mean age at marriage 19.8 n.a. 16.5
Literate male/female (%) 62/39 39/8 40/ 19
Enrollment rates (%)
Primary:
total 115 18 53
male 125 24 68
female 104 11 35
Secondary:
total 47 8 24
male 56 11 30
female 38 5 11
Higher education:
% college population that is female 31 46 n.a.
Labor force: % female 9 (1986) 8 (1989) 9 (1984)
Participation rate %
Total 31 30 29.6
male 45 54 5 1.7
female 8 5 5.8
Sources: World Bank, Social Indicators of Development 1988 (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity Press, 1988); and V.M. Moghadam, Modernizing Women. Gender and Social Change in the
Middle East (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1993), Table 7.3, p.239; Afghanistan Today no. 5
(Sept.-Oct. 1987), no. 6 (Nov.-Dec. 1988).

the Muslim Middle East (including Turkey and
Iran), and South and East Asia (Pakistan, Afghani-
stan, Northern India and rural China). As Stacey
(1983) argued in her study of China, patriarchy
persists in “a family and social system in which
male power over women and children derives from
the social role of fatherhood, and is supported by a
political economy in which the family unit retains a
significant productive role.” Whereas most of Asia
has experienced considerable fertility decline in re-
cent decades-a function of increased female edu-
cation and employment-a handful of countries,
including the three examined in this article, stand
out for their lack of significant fertility change. Ac-
cording to the results of the World Fertility Survey,
71 percent of Pakistani girls marry under the age of
17 (McDonald 1985). Indeed, demographic facts
about societies such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and
Northern India suggest “a culture against women,”
in which women are socialized to sacrifice their
health, survival chances and life options (Sen and
Sengupta 1983; Papanek 1990).
The subordination of women in kinship-ordered
or agrarian societies seems to be linked to the re-
production of the kin group or of the peasantry as
well as to the sexual division of labor. There is a
predisposition to male dominance inherent in the
relation between the pre-capitalist peasant house-
hold and the world of landlords and the state
(Wood 1988), and in the reproduction of kinship-
ordered groups, wherein women are exchanged and
men are the transactors (Rubin 1975). Following
Engels (1972/1884), Gailey (1987) argues that his-
torically, stratification and state formation preceded
the subordination of women, who were then assimi-
lated into concepts of property. Lerner’s study

123
(1986) of the creation of patriarchy shows how laws
were enacted in ancient Mesopotamia to institu-
tionalize female subordination and the rule of males.
The Code Hammurabi, the Middle Assyrian Law,
Hittite laws and Hebraic law encoded male and fe-
male differences, and especially the sexual control
of women.
In Mann’s (1986) elaboration of the historical
and cross-cultural trajectory of patriarchy, patriar-
chal society is defined as one in which power is held
by male heads of households. There is also a clear
separation between the “public” and the “private”
spheres of life. In the public sphere, power is shared
between male patriarchs according to whatever
other principles of stratification operate. No female
holds any formal public position of economic, ideo-
logical, military or political power. Young brides
marry into large families, gain respect mainly via
their sons, and late in life acquire power as moth-
ers-in-law. This is an ideal-type of patriarchy, but it
represents fairly accurately the historical reality
from the first written records emerging from
Mesopotamia around 2500 B.C., as Lerner also
showed, to Western Europe up to the eighteenth
century A.D., and currently in parts of the Middle
East, North Africa and South Asia.
The patriarchal extended family gives the senior
man authority over everyone else, including
younger men, and entails forms of control and sub-
ordination of women which cut across cultural and
religious boundaries. In his description of a peasant
household in Russia at the turn of the century,
Shanin (1987:22) notes that, despite women’s heavy
agricultural burdens and functional importance in
the household, they were considered second-class
members of it, “and nearly always placed under the
authority of a male.” Even the full rights of the
male members “should be considered in the frame-
work of a patriarchal structure involving extensive
powers of the head over his household (Shanin
1987:22) Mann explains that in Western Europe,
from about the 16th to the 18th centuries, the
stratification system changed under the pressure of
emerging capitalism, first in agriculture and then in
industry, as more of economic life became part of
the public realm. The material bases of classic patri-
archy crumbled and new family forms emerged un-
der the impact of capital penetration, infrastructural
development, proletarianization, mass education
and employment (Levine and contributors 1984;
Maim 1986; Kandiyoti 1988). The entry of women
into the public sphere weakened patriarchy, and the
emergence of universal citizenship dissolved it. So-
124
cial stratification based on class and ge.nder fol-
lowed.
In Muslim societies this process has not been
completed. Low levels of proletarianization, indus-
trialization and educational attainment inhibit
women’s active participation in the public sphere in
the patriarchal belt. In the three countries under
consideration, and as seen in Table 1, there is lim-
ited literacy, infrastructural development and ur-
banization, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
While Iran is the more economically developed and
urbanized of the three, much of the measured labor
force remains “self-employed,” according to the
1986 Census (Moghadam 1993, Ch. 6).
In these and similar countries, patriarchal forms
of control over women include the institutionaliza-
tion of extremely restrictive codes of behavior for
women, a practice of rigid gender segregation,
specific forms of family and kinship, and a powerful
ideology linking family honor to female virtue. Men
are entrusted with safeguarding family honor
through their control over female members. As Ka-
beer (1988) noted for Bangladesh, this practice is
backed by complex social arrangements which en-
sure the protection and dependence of women. In
contemporary Muslim patriarchal societies, such
control over women is considered necessary in part
because women are regarded as the potential source
of social Jtna, that is, disorder or anarchy (Sabbah
1984; Ghoussoub 1987).
It should be noted that in the Middle East and
South Asia the spread of patriarchy is uneven, and
strongest in rural areas. T h e emergence of a mod-
ern middle class tied to the capitalist economy or
the state bureaucracy would seem to represent a
weakening of the patriarchal order. But, as men-
tioned above, the modern and salaried middle class
is small, as is the modern industrial proletariat. Af-
ghanistan and Pakistan are predominantly rural,
and precapitalist forms of social organization, in-
cluding various forms of nomadic groups, are found
in all three countries. Tillion (1983) has argued that
pastoral nomadic tribes entail the control of women
in tightly interrelated lineages. This is especially
pertinent to Afghanistan, which is the most tribal
and least developed of the three countries, but is an
explanatory factor in Pakistan’s case as well. Keddie
(1990) explains that even though most nomadic
women are not veiled and secluded, they are con-
trolled. Thus social structure and stage of economic
development is a crucial factor in the persistence of
patriarchy.
Another factor in the politicization of gender
and controversy over women-and a factor as well
 in the strengthening or diminution of patriarchy-
is the nature and objectives of the state, political
system and ruling elites. Outside of the household,
a source of patriarchal control is political-juridical,
that is, the state and legislation. Constructions of
gender and discourses about women are sometimes
a convenient weapon between contending political
groups. Political elites or states may raise “the
woman question”-or issues of morality and cul-
tural identity-to divert attention from economic
problems or political corruption (Imam 1994).
States that base and legitimize their own power on
patriarchal structures such as the extended family
or rural groups foster and encourage its perpetua-
tion through legislation subordinating women to
the control of men (Sharabi 1988; Agarwal 1988).
Examples are laws passed by the Khomeini regime
in Iran and the Zia ul-Haq regime in Pakistan (to be
discussed below). Elsewhere, too, discriminatory
personal status laws which render women legal mi-
nors and dependants of men reflect and perpetuate
patriarchy. Such laws and governmental policies es-
tablished by “neo-patriarchal states” (Sharabi 1988)
serve to limit women’s autonomy, mobility and
employment.* While neo-patriarchal states are not
the only ones that pass laws restricting women’s
autonomy-as the persistent legal battle over
abortion rights in the United States attests-there
is a fundamental difference between the legal status
of women in patriarchal society and in advanced in-
dustrialized society.8
Another reason why states may find it useful to
foster patriarchal structures is that the extended
family performs vital welfare functions. The joint
household system and intergenerational wealth
flows that are characteristics of patriarchal struc-
tures provide welfare and security for its members.
This is, in turn, incumbent upon an adequate supply
of household members, especially sons, through
high fertility. Where this does not occur, the mate-
rial consequences of reproductive failure are disas-
trous, as Cain (1988) observes. It is especially dire
for women, who attain status and old-age security
through having sons. In any event, the persistence
of patriarchy relieves the state of responsibility for
the provision of welfare to citizens.
Modernizing, developmentalist elites-particu-
larly, but not exclusively, those with a socialist ori-
entation-tend to see the emancipation of women
as part of their program for development and
change (Jayawardena 1986; Molyneux 1982; Kruks,
Rapp and Young 1989). These states would be
more inclined to curb the power of traditional and
rural elites, and this would entail an attack on
125
forms of patriarchal control over women and young
men, as occurred in Soviet Central Asia (Massell
1974). States within the patriarchal belt which have
undertaken such actions are Turkey under Kemal
Ataturk in the 1920s and 193Os, the People’s
Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY, or South
Yemen) in the late 1960s and 1970s, and the Demo-
cratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) in the late
1970s and early 1980s.
The third element of the framework is social
change. Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan are develop-
ing countries undergoing industrialization, urbani-
zation and other social changes, including
revolutionary change (in Afghanistan and Iran).
Social change in these countries has been fairly
rapid since the 1960s. As Moore (1966) has shown,
the passage to modernization can be ambiguous and
fragile, fraught with tensions, and marked by con-
tradictory patterns. One result has been the devel-
opment of modern social classes that coexist, often
uneasily, with more traditional groups. Women’s
rights groups and fundamentalist movements, fe-
male autonomy and social/familial control of
women, mass poverty and elite privilege, high-tech
industries and traditional markets all coexist un-
easily. In some cases, the existence of an upper class
that is Western-educated and cultured in an oth-
erwise poor or developing social context, sets up a
situation of disparity and disaffection that underlies
calls for moral and cultural renewal, including the
privatization of women’s roles. Thus these societies
are characterized by the existence of “modern” and
“traditional” social groups and social relations
which are often in contention.
Another result of social change is the emergence
of “fundamentalist” movements which have both a
political and a cultural agenda. “Fundamentalist” or
Islamist movements must be understood as both
political struggles on the part of descending or as-
cending classes in contention with ruling groups
and as cultural phenomena which seek a return to
values and structures of the past, including
“traditional” sex roles. Fundamentalist political-
cultural projects may appear in the form of an al-
ternative and opposition to the state (as in Afghani-
stan and Iran), or they may originate with the state
itself (as in Pakistan). In all cases, the process of
social change is marked by a disorienting collision
of tradition and modernity which calls cultural
identity into question and politicizes gender rela-
tions and the position of women (see Moghadam
1994).
During periods of change or contestation,
women frequently become the sign or marker of
cultural and political objectives (Moghadam 1994).
Representations of women are deployed during
processes of revolution and state-building and when
power is being reproduced (Yuval-Davis and Anth-
ias 1989; Moghadam 1993, Ch. 3). Women may be
linked to modernization and progress (as in the case
of the Marxist revolutionaries in Afghanistan), or
to cultural identity, tradition and religious ortho-
doxy (as in the cases of Islamists in Iran and Paki-
stan). The veiling or unveiling of women at
different points in a country’s evolution signifies
the political and cultural project of ascending
groups (Papanek 1989). For “fundamentalists,” who
prefer veiling and restrictions, women are seen as
the bearers of culture and repository of traditions;
constructions of gender inevitably emphasize
women’s reproductive roles, and states assume pro-
natalist policies. As one commentator notes: “The
stability and sanctity of family life, kinship ties and
loyalties, the fabric of religious observance and cus-
tom-all these are maintained largely through
women who are looked upon as preservers and up-
holders of social virtues” (Habib 1984).
The framework outlined above is presented as
an alternative to essentialist conceptions of Islam
which are frequently found in discussions of
women’s positions and of gender in Muslim coun-
tries. The politics of gender and the centrality of
“the woman question”-why women were the tar-
get groups in the three countries under considera-
tion, and why the struggle around women’s
autonomy has been so sharp-should be understood
in terms of state projects and political legitimation
in a patriarchal context, where women constitute a
compelling signifier.4 In all three cases examined in
this paper, gender was highly politicized. The spe-
cific differences in the course and outcome of the
struggle over gender and laws about women are
rooted in the nature and capacity of the state and in
domestic social structure, including women’s or-
ganization and resistance to domination.
Gender and the State of Iran
The Iranian Revolution against the Shah, which
unfolded between Spring 1977 and February 1979,
was joined by countless women. Like other social
groups, their reasons for opposing the Shah were
varied: economic deprivation, political repression,
identification with Islamism. The large street dem-
onstrations included huge contingents of women-
wearing the veil as a symbol of opposition to the
Pahlavi state, Many women who wore the veil as a
protest symbol did not expect h j a b (veiling) to be-
come mandatory. Thus when the first calls were
126
made to enforce hjab, and when Ayatollah
Khomeini was quoted as saying he preferred to see
women in hejab, many women were alarmed. Spir-
ited protests and sit-ins were led by middle-class
leftist and liberal women, most of them members of
political organizations or recently formed women’s
organizations. Limited support for the women’s
protests came from the main political groups. As a
result of the women’s protests, the ruling on hjub
was rescinded-but only temporarily. With the de-
feat of the Left and the Liberals in 1980 and their
elimination from the political terrain in 1981, the
Islamists were able to make veiling compulsory,
and to enforce it strictly.
The tepid response of the Left organizations to
the woman question in 1979 is a factor in the even-
tual ability of the Islamists to impose their will. At
the time, questions of gender, including the issue of
veiling, were considered secondary to the main ob-
jective of the revolution: the overthrow of the
Shah’s dictatorship, along with dependent capital-
ism and imperialist ties. The issue of women’s
rights, like democratic rights and civil rights in
general, were placed at the bottom of the political
agenda (Moghadam 1987). The absence of a long-
standing democratic tradition in Iranian political
culture contributed to this neglect, as did the per-
vasiveness of neo-patriarchal culture. The idea that
women had lost modesty and men honor during the
Pahlavi era was a widespread one, elaborated by
Islamists and adopted by segments of the Left. Both
leftists and Islamists decried the overly made-up
“bourgeois dolls”-television announcers, singers,
upper-class women in the professions-of the Pah-
lavi era. The Islamists in particular felt that
“genuine Iranian cultural identity” had been dis-
torted by Westernization, or what they called
gharbzadegi. The unveiled, publicly visible woman
was both a reflection of Western subversion of in-
digenous culture, and the medium by which West-
ern influence was effected. The growing number of
educated and employed women “terrified” men who
came to regard the modern woman as the manifes-
tation of Westernization and imperialist culture,
and a threat to their own manhood (Tohidi 1994;
Najmabadi 1993). Mernissi (1987) has also sug-
gested this with regard to the fundamentalist wave
in the Arab world.
Almost immediately, the Islamist state manag-
ers assumed a pro-natalist stance, one which found
its way into the new constitution. The 1979 Consti-
tution of the Islamic Republic spelled out the place
of woman in the ideal Islamic society, which the
new leadership was trying to establish in Iran:
within the family, through the “precious foundation
of motherhood,” rearing committed Muslims
Motherhood and domesticity were described as so-
cially valuable “Given the weighty responsibilities
that woman thus assumes, she is accorded in Islam
great value and nobility” (Constitution: 2 2 ) Legis-
lation was also enacted t o alter gender relations and
make them as different as possible from gender
norms in the West. In particular, the Islamic Re-
public emphasized the distinctiveness of male and
female roles, a preference for the privatization of
female roles, the desirability of sex segregation in
public places, and the necessity of modesty in dress
and demeanor and in media images. In summary
form, the changes were as follows:
1. Marriage and the famzly: The Family Protection
Act-instituted by the previous regime in 1967
and 1975, giving women additional rights and
limiting men’s rights-was abrogated in favor of
laws which presumably corresponded more
closely to Islamic norms and canon law The
marriage age for girls was lowered from 18 to 1s.
Polygamy and temporary marriage (sigheh) were
reinstated. Abortion was declared illegal and con-
traceptive devices banned. Divorce and child cus-
tody once again became unilateral rights of men.
2. Drew’wornen’s appearance: Hejab was made com-
pulsory. When in public women were to don ei-
ther the all-enveloping chador or a large
headscarf covering all their hair and pushed
down to their eyebrows, along with loose cloth-
ing and dark stockings. No perfume or make-up,
and especially no lipstick, was allowed in public.
3 . Gender segregation: Women and men were segre-
gated in public spaces and institutions, including
restaurants, buses, schools, university lecture
halls, and offices.
4. Guardianship: Male guardianship was reintro-
duced, rendering women legal minors and de-
pendants. Written permission of a father or
husband was required before a woman could
travel or obtain employment.
5 Female employment: While women were not
banned from the labor market, written permis-
sion by a male guardian was required. Women
were barred from certain occupations and pro-
fessions, such as judges, agriculture extension
workers, mining engineers, and veterinary sci-
ence. Women singers were not to be seen nor
heard on radio and television. A law was intro-
duced limiting young mothers to part-time work
only. Daycare centers were closed down. The re-
sult was a drop in female labor force participa-
tion, especially dramatic in the industrial sector.5
6 . Legalfiarnework: The Shariat (Islamic canon law)
was strengthened and the Code Napoleon dimin-
ished. The ancient Law of Retribution (Qesas)
127
was introduced, which inter alia, imposes stoning
for adultery and restores the practice of blood-
money. In the case of the latter, a woman’s value
is set at half of a man’s.
7 . Treatment of female political prisoners: During the
period of the mini civil war, 1981-1985, pitting
Islamists against liberals and the Left, unmarried
women political prisoners who were slated for
execution were raped before their execution-
forced into sigheh by and with prison authori-
ties-on the ostensibly Islamic grounds that
virgins ascend to heaven.
8 . Education:Co-educational schools were converted
into single-sex institutions. Teachers who were
insufficiently Islamic were purged, and textbooks
were revised. The new textbooks had fewer pic-
tures of women, and those pictures of women
depicted them in domestic roles. A number of
fields of study a t the university level were placed
off-limits to women.
T h e move to codify patriarchal gender relations
(
:orresponded t o the attempt to establish the ommat
(umrna in Arabic), the community of believers, based
on the seventh-century model. In so far as the latter
was a serious plan, it failed. W h a t emerged from the
Iranian Revolution and has evolved in the subse-
quent decade is an amalgam of traditional and mod-
ern features-videnced by the very name, Islamic
Republtc. Perhaps as a result, the new gender codes
enumerated above were eventually modified, al-
tered, o r eliminated altogether. Public places are no
longer as rigidly segregated as they were in the
early years of Islamization. Prior t o his death, Xya-
tollah Khomeini decreed that foreign films in which
unveiled women starred could once again be shown.
T h e dress code has relaxed somewhat, although
hair and the female form still should not be evident,
and women cannot wear cosmetics in public.
Women can also now initiate divorce, and restric-
tions on fields of study a t universities were lifted in
the summer of 1989. Childcare has been reinstituted
at many workplaces and family planning is now
being discussed in government circles. In their
study of sex role socialization in Iranian textbooks,
Higgins and Shoar-Ghaffari ( 1989) discovered that,
despite the ideological emphasis on motherhoad,
large families were not being projected through
elementary textbooks as the norm o r the ideal.
W h a t accounts for the shift? First, it appears
that the major target of the Islamist regime’s politi-
cal and cultural programs was the upper-middle
class, Westernized and associated with the previous
regime. Once the female judges, prominent civil
servants, foundation directors and so on were fired
or went into exile, a new layer of women-more
“ideologically correct” or at least unconnected to
the ancien regimetook their places in the govern-
ment agencies. The mere presence of these working
women in the Islamic Republic must surely have
subverted and undermined the patriarchal ideology
of domesticity. Second, the regime’s own gender
ideology was contradictory. On the one hand, it ex-
horted domesticity; on the other hand, it tolerated
women in workplaces and had its own female “hired
guns.” Even those women who were staunch
Khomeinists and who, as para-police, enforced the
law on veiling, are not “domesticated.” Third, the
gender code was modified and women were allowed
to work due to the exigencies of the war effort (the
Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88). In a situation where
millions of men were at one time or another mobi-
lized, or were killed or maimed and unable to par-
ticipate in the labor force, women had to
compensate for the loss. A fourth reason derives
from the logic of revolutionary change and ideo-
logical mobilization: they eventually run their
course and permit liberalization.
Female members of parliament and Islamist
women intellectuals continue to defend the veil and
insist that women’s liberation can only come about
within an Islamic context (of the Iranian type). But
in parliament and in the women’s magazines they
also criticize discrimination and complain of obsta-
cles to the realization of their rights as citizens. Ac-
cording to the 1986 Census on population and
housing, there are just under one million women in
the measured labor force, 51 percent of whom are
salaried (professionals and civil servants); the fe-
male share of the university population is 30 per-
cent. It is not inconceivable that a new activism will
emerge from these women (see Moghadam 1993,
Ch. 6).
Gender and the State in Pakistan
Since partition, periodic efforts have been made
to extend literacy and education to Pakistani
women and to integrate them into development
projects. The governments of Ayub Khan and Zul-
fiqar Ali Bhutto both sought to expand the labor
force of their own social base by reaching out to
women. Women from the rich and upper-middle-
class families obtained university degrees and
jointed the professions (Mumtaz and Shaheed
1987), and have become active in politics. But by
the mid-1980s Pakistan still had high female illiter-
acy, a tiny proportion (under five percent) of
women among the salaried labor force, a high birth
rate, and an inverse sex ratio (see Table 1). The life
12s
of the majority of Pakistani women has been thus
described
Rural women are subject to various forms of exploi-
tation as unpaid drudges and child bearers by their
own men, and as sexual quarry by the rural aristoc-
racy A floating reservoir of unorganized, cheap
domestic and industrial female labor-some of it
child labor-is available owing to urban migra-
tion In the absence of social services and social se-
curity, poor widows and deserted women are
reduced to near-destitution. T h e majority of Paki-
stan’s women live on the edge of poverty in a male-
dominated environment where the average number
of surviving children is seven per family (Habib
1984.532)
Following his coup d’e‘tat of July 1977 and the
execution of the left-populist Prime Minister
Bhutto, General Zia ul-Haq sought legitimacy in a
program of Islamization. Launched in early 1979-
at the same time that the Khomeini regime came to
power-Islamization was based on an unprece-
dented religiously-derived legal code which greatly
diminished women’s rights, and had a class as well
as gender target. It seemed fixated on moral and
sexual offences. T h e Hodud Ordinance covered such
crimes as theft, adultery, fornication, alcohol con-
sumption, slander and apostasy. Severe punishment
could be prescribed if “a [sane] adult man and a
[sane] adult women ...wilfully have sexual inter-
course without being validly married to each other”
(Weiss 1993). Punishments were meted out in a
highly discriminatory fashion as women could be
proved guilty through medical examination or from
becoming pregnant following a rape, while men
were often acquitted due to lack of evidence. By the
time of Zia’s death in summer 1988, over 200 Paki-
stani women were behind bars for having violated
the Hodud Ordinance, including committing zzna
(adultery and fornication).
Another law, the Qanoon-e Shahadat (Law of
Evidence), promulgated in October 1984, requires
the testimony of two women for that of a man. T h e
proposed law of Qesas (retribution) and Dzyat (blood
money) had not been decreed before Zia’s death. It
would have allowed for a dzyat equivalent to 3 0 4
kilos of silver to be paid to the family of a murdered
man, but only half of that would have to be paid if
the victim is a woman. The Shariat Ordinance
would have repealed the Family Laws Ordinance of
1961 (which were similar to the Family Protection
Act passed in Iran in 1967) and, as in Iran, given
juridical organs the power to interpret Muslim per-
sonal law. The impact of the legislation was to in-
crcase gender inequality and to diminish women’s
status in Pakistan.
\I.‘hen Zia came to power he cancelled existing
population planning policies. By tlic early 1BSOS,
thr population had reached 844.3 ndlion. At three
percent per annum, Pakistan has one of the highest
population growth rates in the Lvorld, with the
highest fertility rates found among rural, illiterate
females. Indeed, the vast majority of Pakistani
women are rural, illiterate and poor, and patriarchal
relations rule their lives. There is consensus that
higher levels of female literacy have an inverse ef-
fect on women’s fertility. But not until the Seventh
Five-Year Plan (which commenced in 1988) was
there a systematic, nationally coordinated effort to
improve female primary education in the country. It
is not only the state that is implicated. A sociologi-
cal survey found that 50 percent of those ques-
tioned did not support formal female education
because they feared that their daughters would not
make good housewives, would lose their modesty,
would read vulgar literature, and would defy their
parents if they were sent to school (Mustafa n.d.).
The ideological notion that women are unsuited
for many kinds of work is perpetuated by the ab-
sence of universal schooling which leaves women
unprepared for jobs in the modern sector of the
economy. T h e fiction that women do not work is
further enhanced by the undercounting of female
agricultural and informal sector workers in census
reports and manpower surveys. In Pakistan, rural
women are generally engaged in production for
consumption or exchange at the subsistence level.
In the urban areas, dire economic necessity pushes
women into ,factory work or the informal sector.
While the percentage of waged and salaried women
in the formal sector is extremely low, most urban
women are engaged at home either in piecework
(mainly sewing or embroidering) or in making
things for the informal sector. In a survey she con-
ducted in Lahore, Weiss discovered that in many
instances, women working at home were doing the
same kind of small-scale manufacturing as done by
men working in the bazaar, though they earn ap-
preciably less. Work within the home is possible
because of its anonymity, but precisely because of
this, wages are unreasonably low (Weiss 1993).
Factory employment tends to be temporary and in-
secure, devoid of such luxuries as maternity leave
and medical benefits. T h e traditional view that a
woman’s modesty can best be protected if she re-
mains within the confines of her home is still re-
ported as the main impediment to female
participation in industrial employment, even at the
129
government level (Weiss 1993). Whether due to
government inaction or cultural conservativeness,
the result is the realization of that patriarchal
situation of chador a m char diwari-that is, woman
lreiled and within the confines of the four walls of
her house.
It should be noted that before his death there
were strong objections to Zia’s attempts to institu-
tionalize patriarchy. Even a government-sponsored
commission on the status of women, which pro-
duced a report in 1986, was highly critical of state
inaction in the areas of literacy, and decried unjust
customs and norms. T h e Seventh Five-Year Plan
resulted from this and from the activities and pro-
tests of feminist groups such as the Women’s Ac-
tion Forum (WAF) and the Pakistan Women’s
Lawyers Association (PWLA), as well as the All-
Pakistan Women’s Association (APWA), headed by
the widow of the country’s first prime minister. Ac-
cording to one observer, Pakistan has the most ef-
fective and militant women’s movement of any
Muslim country (Keddie 1988:86).
During her first brief tenure, Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto gave vocal commitment to women’s
rights. But no concrete steps were taken to alleviate
women’s subjugation. Even if Zia’s laws were re-
pealed and more progressive ones passed, raising
women’s status in Pakistan will be a prolonged af-
fair. In social-structural terms, Pakistani women
remain dependent on the domestic and familial
group for their survival. Where outside earning op-
portunities are scarce and poorly paid, women’s
work in primary processing of crops, home-based
production and other forms of home-based work
represent the major arenas for using female labor.
Most women, regardless of socio-economic status
or class, are dependent on the household for eco-
nomic survival and social status. They have few al-
ternatives to investing their energies in the
household as a work unit (Papanek 1989). Both
economically and socially, most women remain de-
pendent on men throughout their lifetimes, and
most derive identity in the family circle as mother,
wife, daughter, and sister.
Gender and the State in Afghanistan
In April 1978, the People’s Democratic Party of
Afghanistan (PDPA), after having seized power, in-
troduced rapid reforms to change the political and
social structure of Afghan society, including pat-
terns of land tenure and gender relations. T h e gov-
ernment of President Noor Mohammad Taraki
enacted legislation to raise women’s status through
changes in the family law, including practices and
customs related to marriage, and designed policies
to encourage female education and employment. As
in both Iran and Pakistan, “the woman question”
constituted an essential part of the political-cultural
prqject. Unlike the two previous cases, however, the
A4fghanstate was motivated by a modernizing out-
look and socialist ideology which linked Afghan
backwardness to widespread female illiteracy and
such practices as the exchange of girls (brideprice,
or walwar in Pashtu). The leadership resolved that
women’s rights to education, employment, mobility
and choice of spouse would be a major objective of
the “national democratic revolution.”
Along with land redistribution, the cancellation
of peasants’ debts and mortgages, and other meas-
ures to wrest power from traditional leaders in Af-
ghan society, the government promulgated Decree
No. 7 , meant to fundamentally change the institu-
tion of marriage. A prime concern of the designers
of the decree, which also motivated other reforms of
the Taraki government, was to reduce material in-
debtedness throughout the country, which had
reached excessive levels due to high expenditures
on marriage, and high interest rates on loans. De-
cree No. 7 was further meant to ensure equal rights
of women with men. In a speech on 4 November
1978, President Taraki said that “through the issu-
ance of Decrees No. 6 [on land reform] and 7 , the
hard-working peasants were freed from the bonds
of oppressors and moneylenders, ending the sale of
girls for good as hereafter nobody would be entitled
to sell any girl or woman in this country” (quoted
in Tapper 1984).
The first two articles in Decree No. 7 forbade
the exchange of a woman in marriage for cash or
kind, and the payment of other prestations custom-
arily due from a bridegroom on festive occasions;
the third article set an upper limit of 300 afghanis
on the mahr, a payment due from groom to bride
which is an essential part of the formal Islamic
marriage contract (which in the Afghan context had
been converted into the brideprice). Articles 4 to 6
of the Decree set the ages of first engagement and
marriage at 16 for women and 18 for men; stipu-
lated that no one, including widows could be com-
pelled to marry against his or her will; stated that
no one could be prevented from marrying if she or
he so desired. Along with the promulgation of De-
cree No. 7 , the PDPA government embarked upon
a n aggressive literacy campaign. This was led by
the Democratic Women’s Organization of Afghani-
stan, whose function was to educate women, bring
them out of seclusion, and initiate social programs.
Throughout the countryside, PDPA cadre estab-
130
lished literacy classes for men, women and children
in the villages. By August 1979 the government
had established 600 new schools.
This was, clearly, an audacious program for so-
cial change, one aimed at the rapid transformation
of a patriarchal society and decentralized power
structure based on tribal and landlord authority.
Revolutionary change, state-building, and women’s
rights subsequently went hand-in-hand. But PDPA
attempts to change marriage laws, expand literacy
and educate rural girls met with strong opposition.
Decrees 6 and 7 deeply angered the rural tribesmen
and the traditional power structure. Believing that
women should not appear at public gatherings, vil-
lagers often refused to attend classes after the first
day (Katsikas 1982:23l). PDPA cadre viewed this
attitude as retrograde, and, thus, the cadre resorted
to different forms of persuasion, including physical
force, to make the villagers return to literacy
classes. Often the PDPA cadre were either kicked
out of the village or murdered. In the summer of
1978 refugees began pouring into Pakistan, giving
as their major reason the forceful implementation of
the literacy program among their women. In Kan-
dahar, three literacy workers from the women’s or-
ganization were killed as symbols of the unwanted
revolution. Two men killed all the women in their
families to prevent them from “dishonor” (Dupree
1984).
There was also universal resistance to the new
marriage regulations. In the Afghan patriarchal
context (particularly in Pushtunwali, the tribal code
of the dominant Pushtuns), the brideprice was the
payment to the bride’s father as compensation for
the loss of his daughter’s labor in the household
unit. Marriage, enforced or otherwise, was a way of
ending feuds, cementing a political alliance between
families, or increasing the family’s prestige. The
marriage regulations, coupled with compulsory
education for girls, raised the threat of women re-
fusing to obey and to submit to family and male
authority. A tribal-Islamist opposition began organ-
izing and conducted several armed actions against
the government in spring of 1979.
Internal battles within the PDPA (especially be-
tween its two wings, Parcham and Khalq) contrib-
uted to the government’s difficulties. In September
1979 President Taraki was killed on the orders of
his deputy, Hafizullah Amin, a ruthless and ambi-
tious man who imprisoned and executed hundreds
of his own comrades in addition to further alienat-
ing the population (Anwar 1988). T h e Pakistani
regime of Zia ul-Haq was opposed to the leftists
next door, and supported the Mujahideen armed
 uprising. I n December 1$179the Soviet army inter-
\Jened. Amin was killed and succeeded by Rabrak
Karmal, who initiated what is called “the second
phase.”
In 1980 the PDPA slowed down its reform pro-
gram and announced its intention to eliminate illit-
eracy in the cities in seven years and in the
pro\.inces in ten. In an interview that year, PDPA
official Anahita Ratebzad conceded errors, “in par-
ticular the compulsory education of women,” to
which she added, “the reactionary elements imme-
diately made use of these mistakes to spread discon-
tent among the population.” Despite the slowing
down of reforms (including such concessions as re-
storing Islamic family law), the resistance move-
ment spread, supported by Pakistan. the United
States, China, the Islamic Republic of Iran and
Saudi Arabia. Unlike Iran and Pakistan, the Afghan
state was not a strong one, able to impose its will
through extensive administrative and military ap-
paratus. As a result, it was less successful than ei-
ther Iran under Khomeini or Pakistan under Zia ul-
Haq in carrying out its program: in Afghanistan’s
case, land redistribution and women’s rights. The
beneficiaries of the program for female literacy were
mainly urban women; the vast majority of Afghan
women who are rural remain illiterate. The gov-
ernment’s efforts to raise women’s status through
legal changes regarding marriage were stymied by
patriarchal structures highly resistant to change,
and a hostile international environment (See
Moghadam 1993, Ch. 7.).
Throughout the 1980s, the Pakistan-based
Mujahideen called for the return to compulsory
veiling, gender-segregated education, and a sepa-
rate curriculum for girls. In the Mujahideen-run
refugee camps of Peshawar, the threshold for girls’
education was age ten. In this regard the Afghan
Islamists are far more conservative than the Iranian
Islamists, who provide uniform and universal
education. Again, unlike the Iranian Islamists, the
Afghan Mujahideen do not allow women to assume
positions in their administrative structure, which
are tribal-based and patriarchal in the most classic
sense.
On the government side, the emphasis on “the
woman question” subsided in favor of a concerted
effort at “national reconciliation,” which began in
January 1987 under President Najibullah. In the
Constitution of November 1988, the result of a l q a
jzrgu, or traditional assembly, PDPA members and
activists from the Women’s Council tried to retain
an article stipulating the equality of women with
men. This, however, was opposed by the non-
131
PDPA members of the assembly. A compromise
was reached with another article which stated that
all Afghan citizens, male and female, have equal
rights and obligations before the law.6 But even
this was superseded by subsequent developments.
In 1990 the PDPA underwent its own perestroika.
Having changed its name to Hexb-e Vatun (National
Party), it rejected all goals but those of peace, rec-
onciliation and unification. T h e emancipation of
women would have to wait. And in April 1992, an
ill-advised UN diplomatic effort resulted in the
collapse of the Najibullah government and the as-
sumption of power by the Mujahideen. Though at
this writing (January 1994) the Mujahideen are
now engaged in fierce infighting which has also all
but destroyed Kabul and resulted in a new wave of
refugee migration, they seem to agree on one issue:
the veiling and segregation of women.
Summary and Conclusion
This paper has placed the politicization of gen-
der in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the late
1970s and the 1980s in the context of the contradic-
tory effects of social change in patriarchal societies.
Why “the woman question” assumed the signifi-
cance it did, and why so much contention revolved
around women’s rights, has been explained in terms
of the persistence of patriarchal social structures,
the actions of neo-patriarchal states, and the dis-
ruptive effects of socio-economic change.
Of the three countries studied, Afghanistan is
the most patriarchal, with family-based tribal ar-
rangements prevailing throughout the country.
Consequently, the modernizing regime was unsuc-
cessful in carrying out its program for women’s
rights, except in Kabul. Gains are fragile if objective
conditions are untoward. In all three cases, though,
“the woman question” assumed huge proportions,
and one may well ask why neo-patriarchal states
“raise the woman question if it creates so much
trouble” (Papanek 1989). Certainly different re-
gimes use their specific stand on the woman ques-
tion as a way of signalling their political agenda.
How to create new forms of legitimation, or to ex-
pand their social base, may also motivate stands on
gender and on women’s positions (Molyneux 1982).
The cases also underscore the salience of gender in
politics, revolutions and struggles around cultural
identity. The idealized woman-depicted as
“modern” or “traditional”-has historically played a
role as a national or cultural symbol. In Turkey,
Egypt, India and China during the first half of this
century, women’s rights were part of nationalist
projects and concepts of progress (Jayawardena
1986). In the latter part of the twentieth century,
controls on women are part of the project of re-
claiming a mythical past, or of guarding cultural
identity, or of protesting against imperialism. In
particular. this article has suggested that the poli-
tics of gender may be especially strong in patriar-
chal societies undergoing development and social
change; gender becomes politicized during periods
of transition and restructuring, when social groups
and values clash.
Mann has suggested an evolution, in the West,
from classic patriarchy to neo-patriarchy and a
gendered class structure. The capitalist market and
liberal bourgeois ideology worked in concert to
break down the private/public male/female di-
chotomies, while the growth of education “provided
women with one of their furthest points of entry
into the public sphere and into economic stratifica-
tion” (Mann 198650). Parallel to these socio-
economic changes were ideological, cultural and
discursive developments around women’s equality,
autonomy and liberation. Taking the risk of deter-
minism, one may venture the proposition that in
the three countries under consideration, mass fe-
male education, the entry of women into the work
force, and the expanded activities of women’s or-
ganizations will be the strongest challenge to patri-
archy and the neo-patriarchal state. As Sharabi
(1988:154) has put it, “...thewomen’s movement ...is
the detonator which will explode the neopatriarchal
society from within. If allowed to grow and come
into its own, it will become the permanent shield
against patriarchal regression, the corner stone of
future modernity.”
Notes
1 An earlier version of this article appeared in International So-
ciology 7 ( I ) , March 1992, pp. 35-54.
An example is a law passed in Iraq in February 1990, which
exempts from prosecution those men who, for purposes of
“honor,” have killed female kin. (See Hirst 1990:3). During the
1970s Iraq was hailed for its progressive reforms concerning
women. Pressure from the Iraqi women’s union, and the fact
that Iraq had signed the UN Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, forced a repeal
of the laM. I n Algeria, women found themselves defined as legal
minors arid dependants of spouses and male kin when the coun-
try’s nev Family Law was introduced in 1984.
3 A recevit attempt to theorize patriarchy in a universal fashion
is Walb:. (1989). While theoretically elegant it remains un-
convincing because it cannot account for change in social struc-
tures and the status of women; nor can it explain differences in
the legal status and social positions of women cross-nationally.
+ Women constitute a “signifier” not only in classic patriarchal
areas undergoing social change. In Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union “the woman question” has been raised again, but
132
in a manner quite difyerent from the socialist past. In the place
of a discourse of equality there is now emphasis on women’s
family roles and motherhood responsibilities. “Over-emanci-
pated” and “masculinized women and “feminized men are now
targets of criticism in the Soviet Union. Restrictions of
women’s reproductive rights, especially access to abortions in
hospitals, is on the agenda of most of the countries undergoing
political and economic restructuring.
This may also be a function of a dire economic situation, as
well as the contraction of the private sector. The decline in
male labor participation was even more drastic; and in absolute
numbers more women entered government sector employment
than had been the case prior to the revolution.
Interview with Farid Mazdark, PDPA official, Kabul, 9 Feb-
ruary 1989.
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