Women and Work in Iran

Abstract

The post-revolutionary government in Iran presents its approach to women as a template for other Islamic nations to follow. By reconstructing the Koranic laws to meet the demands of time, it argues that Muslim women have secure and eternal independent economic and social rights. This is not so. Since the revolution Iranian women have systematically lost out in the formal labour market. But in recent years they have made a concerted effort to capture the Islamic discourse to contest the legitimacy of some of the formal obstacles placed on their access to paid employment.