Sediqeh Dowlatabadi

Sediqeh Dowlatabadi (Persian: صدیقه دولت‌آبادی‎ listen ; 1882 in Isfahan – July 30, 1961), was a Persian feminist activist and journalist and one of the pioneering figures in the Persian women's movement.

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Sediqeh Dowlatabadi
صدیقه والت‌ابادی
Born1882
Died30 July 1961

Early life

Dowlatabadi was born in 1882 in Isfahan.[1] Her father was Hadi Dolatabadi and his mother was Khatameh Begum.[2] Her father was a progressive religious jurist and allowed Dolatabadi to begin her education in Persian and Arabic in Tehran.[1] She then continued her secondary education at Dar-ol-Fonoun Academy.[1] Aged 15, she married Etezad al-Hakma, but they divorced because Dowlatabadi was infertile.[3]


On one of the occasions when Dowlatabadi was arrested for her activities, she replied:

Sir, I was born a hundred years late, if I had been born earlier, I would not have allowed women to be so humiliated and trapped in your chains.[3]

Career
Sediqeh Dowlatabadi

Dowlatabadi believed that the only route for the advancement of women was through their education.[4] In 1917, she founded one of the first girls' primary schools, called Umm Al- Madaris (Mother of Schools).[3] The school was closed after objections from religious conservatives and Dowlatabadi was beaten and detained for three months as a result.[5]

In order to educate, she recognised that women needed news and articles that addressed their issues and concerns. This led her to establish the first women's gazette in Isfahan called Zaban-e Zanan (fa) in 1919.[6] This was the third women's newspaper to be published in Iran, and ran for 57 issues until 1921.[6] It was notable for its progressive stance and the outspoken nature of its articles on women's rights.[6] In her first editorial in it she pronounced that paper wanted to challenge the "backwardness and feeble-mindedness" of women's rights in the city.[7] She also established the Women's Association of Isfahan at this time.[8]

From 1925, there was a debate within the intellectual community, newspapers and women's magazines in Iran about the unveiling of women and whether it could act as a modernizing force in the country and increase women's participation in society.[9] During the late 1920s and 1930s there were rumours that the government planned to introduce a policy of compulsory unveiling: the reform, known as Kashf-e hijab, was promogulated in 1936.[10] Dowlatabadi was an outspoken advocate for the unveiling of women.[1] However this led to threats against her life.[7]

In 1926 she attended the International Alliance of Women's Conference in Paris and on her return wore European clothes and refused to wear a veil.[11] She is believed to have been the first woman to have done so,[10] appearing in public in 1928 completely unveilied.[12] Another advocate for unveiling was Khadijeh Afzal Vaziri, who campaigned for change in fashion alongside Dowlatabadi.[13] When the Shah banned the veil in 1936, Dowlatabadi was an active supporter of the reform, and engaged in the new women's committee Kanun-e Banuvan (Ladies Society) formed by the government.[8] The committee was led by the Shah's daughter Princess Shams to unite women organisations and prepare women for unveiling.[10]

Dowlatabadi was an opponent of British involvement in Iran.[2] Together with other like-minded women, she expressed her opposition to the agreement by boycotting imported goods and going to coffee shops and encouraging them not to use foreign sugar.[2]

When the Second Eastern Women's Congress was arranged in Tehran in 1932, Shams Pahlavi served as its president and Dowlatabadi as its secretary.[10]

By 1941, Dowlatabadi was Director of the Women's Centre, however the organisation had little autonomy - for example they needed permission from the Ministry of Education to organise a commemoration of the poet Parvin Etesami.[14]

Sediqeh Dowlatabadi grave, Zargandeh Park 3
Sediqeh Dowlatabadi grave, with plaques destroyed

Dowlatabadi died on 27 August 1961 at the age of 80 in Tehran.[15] She had been ill with cancer.[2] She was buried next to her brother in the Imamzadeh Ismail Cemetery in Zargandeh, however during the 1978 Revolution her tomb was damaged and her remains desecrated.[15]

Legacy
Sediqeh Dowlatabadi 3

Some of Dowlatabadi's archive is kept at the World Foundation for Social Research in Amsterdam.[16] Part of this archive was exhibited in February 2016 at an exhibition on the background of the women's movement.[16]

References
  1. "Iranian Personalities: Sediqeh Dowlatabadi". www.iranchamber.com. Retrieved 2020-12-14.
  2. "شبکه بین المللی همبستگی با مبارزات زنان ايران". www.iran-women-solidarity.net. Retrieved 2020-12-14.
  3. "THE UNIQUE SEDIQEH DOWLATABADI". SUBSTANCE MAGAZINE. 2020-09-07. Retrieved 2020-12-14.
  4. Monshipouri, Mahmood (2006). "Review of Religion and Politics in Modern Iran: A Reader". Middle East Studies Association Bulletin. 40 (2): 271–273. doi:10.1017/S002631840005015X. ISSN 0026-3184. JSTOR 23062905.
  5. Moghissi, Haideh (2008-04-01). "Islamic Cultural Nationalism and Gender Politics in Iran". Third World Quarterly. 29 (3): 541–554. doi:10.1080/01436590801931504. ISSN 0143-6597. S2CID 145128290.
  6. "ZABĀN-E ZANĀN – Encyclopaedia Iranica". www.iranicaonline.org. Retrieved 2020-12-14.
  7. Childress, Diana (2011-01-01). Equal Rights Is Our Minimum Demand: The Women's Rights Movement in Iran 25. Twenty-First Century Books. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-7613-5770-4.
  8. Afary, Janet (2009-04-09). Sexual Politics in Modern Iran. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-39435-3.
  9. Chehabi, Houchang E. (1993). "Staging the emperor's new clothes: dress codes and nation‐building under Reza Shah". Iranian Studies. 26 (3–4): 209–233. doi:10.1080/00210869308701800. ISSN 0021-0862.
  10. Beck, Lois; Nashat, Guity (2004). Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07189-8.
  11. "Women's Center | Foundation for Iranian Studies". fis-iran.org. Retrieved 2020-12-15.
  12. Zargarian, Tannaz (2020-08-11). "Iranian Women's Quest for Self-Liberation through the Internet and Social Media: An Emancipatory Pedagogy". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  13. Moghissi, Haideh (2005). Women and Islam: Womens's movements in Muslim societies. Taylor & Francis. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-415-32421-2.
  14. Moghissi, Haideh (1996), Moghissi, Haideh (ed.), "Women and Social Reforms", Populism and Feminism in Iran: Women’s Struggle in a Male-Defined Revolutionary Movement, Women’s Studies at York Series, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 37–53, doi:10.1007/978-1-349-25233-6_3, ISBN 978-1-349-25233-6, retrieved 2020-12-15
  15. "Iranian Women you Should Know: Sediqeh Dowlatabadi". IranWire | خانه. Retrieved 2020-12-14.
  16. PDN. "Persian Feminism Exhibition in Amsterdam | نمایشگاهی از پیشینه جنبش زنان ایران در آمستردام | Persian Dutch Network | شبکه ایرانیان هلند". Retrieved 2020-12-15.

Further reading
  • Sediqeh Dowlatabadi: Letters, writings and memories, ed. by Afsaneh Najmabadi & Mahdokht Sanati, 3 vols. (Midland, Chicago 1998). [in Persian]
  • Jasmin Khosravie, Zabān-i Zanān – The Voice of Women. Life and Work of Ṣadīqa Daulatābādī (1882-1961) (EB-Publishers, Berlin 2012). [in German]
  • Mohammad Hossein Khosroupanah, The aims and the fight of Iranian women from the Constitutional Revolution until the Pahlavi dynasty (Payam-e Emruz, Tehran 2002). [in Persian]
  • Afsaneh Najmabadi, Women with mustaches and men without beards: Gender and sexual anxieties of Iranian modernity (Univ. of California Press, Berkeley 2005).
  • Eliz Sanasarian, The women’s movement in Iran: Mutinity, appeasement, and repression from 1900 to Khomeini (Praeger, New York 1982).
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