Women in Iran are at the core of the protest movement
With Iran’s population currently revolting, a lot of attention is being paid to the country’s women. Here are just three of the many articles telling their stories:
While I don’t always agree with the Christian Science Monitor’s editorials or the paper’s religious standing, they generally print high-quality, informative reports. This editorial addresses the situation of women in Iran’s current “uprising”. “What is striking about the Iranians protesting fraud in the June 10 “election” is the number of women on the front lines. Among all those cheated at the polls, they may feel the most denied.”
Excellent and informed article on The National: “We feel cheated, frustrated and betrayed,” said an Iranian woman in a message circulated on Facebook. Iran’s energetic female activists are using the social networking site to mobilise opposition to Mr Ahmadinejad. Iranian women also have a dynamic presence on the country’s blogosphere – the biggest in the Middle East – which they are using to keep up popular momentum against the election outcome.
This article on Comment is Free on The Guardian is as dull as dishwater to read but containts some interesting facts.
“Over the last year, for example, there have been a series of small but significant victories: Iranian MPs have declined to enact laws that would have further facilitated men’s ability to indulge in polygamy; new measures are presently under discussion to enhance women’s inheritance rights; and reforms are also being put forward to end the insulting, discriminatory rule in compensation cases, where a family of a dead woman will be awarded literally half of the compensation paid for a man’s death.”
Gutter Poetry in the Arab World 
The women-at-lunch photo, while an interesting image, is unrepresentative of women’s actions being taken (or governmentally precluded) in the present Iranian election revolt. The article also fails to identify the Iranian government’s pre-election, recent anti-woman judicial system oppression directed at disbanding the best feminist organizers in Iran.
As much as the Christian Science Monitor enjoys a good journalistic reputation for generally sound reporting, the Christian Science religious bias still bleeds through — Christian Scientists simply do not accept the physical reality of evil.
Denying the physical reality of evil can work — as some Christian Scientists testify — as a cosmological consciousness principle of Christ (energy)-centered individual healing, but it is a dangerous philosophy of social denial when applied to global sexual politics and other political oppression.
The Christian Science Monitor tends (consistent with the Christian Science religion with which it is affiliated) to focus only on the good — and minimize human suffering and discrimination. Modern, new-agey misplaced “karma” theory tends to do the same in minimizing human suffering and discrimination.
For the rest of the story, see the photos and the last few posts at http://thelongestwar.wordpress.com/
Also check this out:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/17/political-climate-elections-iran-forbes-woman-power-feminism.html