Women’s Activism in the Islamic

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the Formation of Deliberative Civil
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Women’s Activism in the
Islamic Republic of Iran

Political Alliance and

the Formation of
Deliberative Civil Society
Samira Ghoreishi
Women’s Activism in the Islamic Republic of Iran
 Samira Ghoreishi

Women’s Activism in
the Islamic Republic
of Iran
Political Alliance and the Formation
of Deliberative Civil Society
Samira Ghoreishi
Auckland, New Zealand

ISBN 978-3-030-70231-1    ISBN 978-3-030-70232-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70232-8

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
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now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
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To my mother, Hormat Sadat Ziaian, the first feminist in my life
and my son, Bardia Bayat Moghadam.
 Acknowledgments

My research has been guided by many people, and I would like to express
my deep sense of gratitude and thanks to everyone here.
First, I would like to acknowledge the great contribution of my research
participants many of whom I have learned so much from. I owe my deep-
est gratitude to my lead PhD supervisor Katherine Smits and co-­supervisor
Thomas Gregory. They have guided me through my PhD journey through
their respectful guidance, critical engagement, and insightful advice.
My sincere thanks goes to my family. My great appreciation and thanks
goes to the one and only true shining star and the first feminist in my life:
my mother, for her love and unconditional emotional and financial sup-
port. She has been a source of inspiration and encouragement. Also, I
must mention the inspiration from my other family members, including
my father Seyyed-Abdollah Ghoreishi whose memory gets me through my
challenging days. Thanks to all for love and your unconditional support.
My deep gratitude and thanks go to my loving, encouraging, and patient
husband, Davood Bayat-Moghadam. And I must also express my love and
thanks to my son, together he and Davood always cheer me up no matter
what challenges the day brings.
Much love and appreciation to you all.

vii
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
Why Is This Research Important?   6
The Scholarly Context   8
Research Methodology  16
Research Theory and Conceptualization  17
Research Method and the Scope of the Study  20
Method of Analysis  22
Research Limitations  23
References  26

2 Theoretical Framework 35
A Habermasian Model of Deliberative Engagement in the Public
Sphere  36
The Public Sphere and Rationalization  36
Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action  38
Habermas’ Theory of Discourse Ethics  40
Applying Habermas Model of the Public Sphere to Diverse
Societies: Limitations and Solutions?  43
What Are ‘Counterpublics’?  44
The Quality of Relations Among Counterpublics  48
Applying Habermas Model of Public Sphere in Non-­secular
Societies: Limitations and Solutions?  50

ix
x Contents

Habermas’ Ideas on Religion and Secularism  51

Redefinition of the Secular from a Historicized Approach  54
Conclusion  56
References  59

3 Women and Media: A Deliberative Engagement 63

Media Landscape in Iran  65
Women, Media, and the Rise of Diverse Voices  68
Development of Deliberations Through the Press  78
Zanan Magazine After the 1997 Reformist Movement  82
Re-launching ‘Zanan’ After Six Years  87
Public Activism and Development of Deliberations Through
Cinema  90
Conclusion  94
References  96

4 Women and Civil Society Activism105

The Rise of Women’s Activism Through NGOs 106
Development of Women’s Civil Society Activism 108
One Million Signatures Campaign: A Promising Start for
Promoting Cooperation Through Dialogue 112
2006 ‘22 Khordad Gathering’ (12 June 2006 Gathering)112
The Birth of ‘One Million Signatures Campaign’ 115
Women’s Civil Society Activism in the Present Society 120
Conclusion 130
References 132

5 Women’s Parliamentary and Extra (Outside)-Parliamentary

Activism135
Women in Cabinet, Parliament, and Parliament Elections 136
Women’s Parliamentary Activism After 1997 Reformist
Movement 137
Strategic Shift in Women’s Parliamentary Activism: A Move
Toward Deliberative Cooperation and Coalitions 142
Women and City and Local Councils 146
Women’s Activism and Presidential Elections 148
 Contents  xi

Women’s Activism in the Shadow of the Green Movement: A

Momentous Deliberative Cooperation 151
The Rise of the Green Movement: A Green Wave of Hope 154
Conclusion 163
References 165

6 Conclusion171
References 186

Index189
 List of Figures

Fig. 5.1 Karroubi’s Campaign’s Flyer-2009 Presidential Election 158

Fig. 5.2 The Bill of Citizens’ Rights-2009 Presidential Election 159

xiii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

With the emergence of the Islamic movement in 1979 and the resulting
dominance of the new Islamic discourse, the future seemed bleak for
women’s rights and equality in Iran. The clerical elites in the Islamic
Republic of Iran (IRI) asserted that women and men must have different
roles and functions in Islamic society. Accordingly, the mandated gender
roles resulted in different (read: unequal) legal rights in Iran (Akbarzadeh
and MacQueen 2008: 33). One consequence of the Islamic revolution
was the establishment of an ideologically patriarchal constitution. Under
the new laws that were established immediately after the Islamic revolu-
tion, the wearing of the hijab became compulsory for women (Stewart
2009; Matin and Mohajer 2010), men were given the right to get a divorce
without any reason while it is almost impossible for women to initiate a
divorce, and women must also get written permission from a male relative
in order to travel (Stewart 2009; Kar 2001b). Additionally, soon after the
revolution, the 1967 Family Protection Law1 was abolished, eliminating
limitations on polygamy and reducing the minimum age for marriage
(Abbasi-Shavazi and McDonald 2008: 184; Nakanishi 1998).
Nonetheless, after the Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988) and the dominance
of a development-oriented government under the presidency of Akbar

1
1967 Family Protection Law supported women on many issues. As an example, it gave
women the right to initiate divorce, increased the child custody rights, and limited polygamy
(An-Na’im 2002: 94).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
S. Ghoreishi, Women’s Activism in the Islamic Republic of Iran,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70232-8_1
2 S. GHOREISHI

Hashemi Rafsanjani2 (1989–1997), women demonstrated that they had

not abandoned their struggles for equality and justice and they showed an
active presence in public life (Najmabadi 1998). Sixteen years after the
Islamic revolution, feminists, both secular and Islamic, started to open
possibilities for the cultivation of different types of feminisms including
secular feminism (Najmabadi 1998). The emergence of new women’s
journals affirmed the reconfiguration of Islam, revolution, and feminism
in the context of post-revolutionary Iran (Najmabadi 1998).
Despite the resurgence in feminist politics, certain tensions between the
different groups began to emerge after the mid-1990s. Islamic feminists,
for example, argued that women’s public gatherings have been unproduc-
tive, while secular feminists insisted on holding public gatherings3 in order
to preserve women’s public presence (Barlow 2012). Nevertheless, there
have been times when secular and Islamic feminists have worked together
under a common strategic umbrella. On 27 August 2006, for example,
the first instance of practical cooperation between secular feminists and
Islamic feminists occurred with the One Million Signatures Campaign4
(see Chap. 4) (Ahmadi-Khorasani 2010, 2013; Barlow 2012). The cam-
paign was a response to the state’s repression of women’s public gather-
ings and the discriminatory gender policies and laws. The different
segments of the feminist population, encompassing those who were
secular-­oriented and religious-oriented, and women’s rights activists,
together established this campaign to collect one million signatures in
support of law reform in Iran. Although the campaign was suppressed and
did not succeed in collecting one million signatures, it was successful in
terms of publicizing the legal issues and gender inequalities which exist in
the constitution of IRI. However, after the emergence of feminist solidar-
ity with the One Million Signatures Campaign, certain divisions between
2
Rafsanjani was the most influential Iranian politician especially in the early years of the
Islamic Revolution. Rafsanjani’s government had a strong belief in decentralization and
development with an emphasis on economic development (The First Development Plan
1989; The Second Development Plan 1994).
3
The response to these gatherings, which were mostly held by secular feminists, was vio-
lent state repression. The women’s demonstrations were broken up by the police and most
of the feminist activists were arrested and received prison sentences.
4
The main aim of this campaign was to eliminate all discriminatory laws against women in
Iran (Ahmadi-Khorasani 2010; Barlow 2012). The strategy of the campaign was to engage
in face-to-face dialogue in order to increase citizen’s awareness of their rights. The campaign
aimed to be the voice of those silent women, whose everyday life has been affected by dis-
criminatory laws (Ahmadi-Khorasani 2010).
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

the feminists re-emerged. In addition to disagreeing about strategy, the

two groups argued over issues, such as, whether to forge connections with
political parties and politicians or to keep away from the field of politics;
whether to pursue reforms in a way which is compatible with the values of
the Islamic revolution or to seek reforms that refuted revolutionary
doctrine.
Three years after the Campaign ended, both the secular and the Islamic
feminists found another ray of hope in the 2009 presidential election and
restarted their activities. The story of the 2009 presidential election is
identified with the ‘Green Movement’5 (see Chap. 5) (Dabashi 2011;
Haghighatjoo 2016; Harris 2012; Jahanbegloo and Soroush 2010;
Payrow Shabani 2010; Tahmasebi-Birgani 2010). The Green Movement
is characterized as a pluralist movement (Harris 2012; Jahanbegloo and
Soroush 2010; Payrow Shabani 2010) whose key components were
women (Tahmasebi-Birgani 2010) who were from different backgrounds
and who espoused different forms of feminism. In addition to the femi-
nists and the women’s rights activists, diverse social groups were involved
in this movement including ethnic groups, religious minorities, conserva-
tive political groups,6 religious-oriented reformists,7 and secular reform-
ists. For the first time, this movement enabled Iranian feminists and
women’s rights activists managed to powerfully connect to a broad range
of social groups throughout society. Those who observe this movement
recognize the role of Iranian feminists since it gave women hope, encour-
aged them again to be active social agents and it mobilized those women
who held a strong belief in justice, equality, and reform. Nevertheless, in
regard to the consensus and the solidarity that the feminist groups had
created with other social groups and individuals within the Green
Movement, unfortunately, they were not able to maintain it.
As a student who actively followed, observed, and at times, participated
in different events, gatherings, and campaigns in Iran (2002–2010), I
would insist that the experience of the Green Movement was quite differ-
ent from all of the other previous cooperations and coalitions. The social-­
political atmosphere during the 2009 presidential election and the

5
The Green Movement resulted in a kind of military coup d’etat, brutal suppression and
the house arrest of Zahra Rahnavard and Mir-Hossein Mousavi.
6
‘Conservative political groups’ refers to the supporters of Hashemi Rafsanjani.
7
Religious-oriented reformists encompasses those women and men who support reform as
revised continuation of the line of Islamic revolution.
4 S. GHOREISHI

significant presence and role of the different feminist groups and women’s
rights activists in mobilizing diverse Iranian women and some other social
groups was unprecedented based on the history of the post-revolutionary
Iran. As an active citizen during the Green Movement, I could see a big
wave of hope for change and reform among the diverse social groups and
individuals, particularly among the women. In my opinion, this consensus
and cooperation among the diverse groups of women was different from
the consensus within the One Million Signatures Campaign since I
believed that women had the experiences and knowledge they acquired
during the Campaign and the women’s movement and they had become
more mature. The unprecedented consensus among the diverse groups
and individuals related to the significant role of women, and the non-­
violent political struggles before and after the 2009 Presidential election is
and will always be part of the collective memory of my generation.
However, during the aftermath of the election, the state repression, the
end of the pluralist consensus, and the emergence of disagreements in
terms of strategies and approaches to the civil and political struggles were
a shock as well as a hint to me. Even though I left Iran in 2010, I could
not stop thinking about the ways that the Iranian feminist movement has
persisted and can carry on in the future according to its potential despite
the obstacles. In Sweden, I met one of the main establishers of the One
Million Signatures Campaign hoping to achieve an accurate understand-
ing of the main challenges that the Iranian women’s movement has faced.
Following this meeting, I began to ask myself why this consensus as well
as others that had been established, including the consensus within the
Green Movement, did not continue.
The discussion above outlines the context for this research. My interest
in this research project arises from the fact that despite the distinctions
among diverse women’s rights groups and activists, and the differences
among the various social groups, such as, the religious and ethnic minori-
ties, these diverse factions at times have made moves toward solidarity.
The short life of this consensus in addition to others has motivated me to
investigate the links between the women’s rights advocate groups/indi-
viduals and different social groups, and the women’s activism’s potential
to help to form a critical civil society working toward reform in IRI.
Considering this background, the core research question of this study
is as follows:
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

• To what extent can the women’s rights groups and activists in the
IRI address the interests of women, while also engaging with the
diverse social groups, to help facilitate the formation of a civil society
capable of engaging in deliberative processes toward reform in
the country?

To answer this question, it is important to explore the following

subquestions:

I. How has women’s activism emerged in the theocratic system of

post-revolutionary Iran?
II. In what areas of the public sphere have women developed activism?
III. What groups and individuals are involved in women’s pub-
lic activism?

The present study contributes to and advances the existing scholarship

on the women’s activism in the Middle East, particularly in Iran, in several
ways. First, the existing scholarship in the field of Iranian women’s activ-
ism is more method-driven and descriptive-analytical and less concerned
about constructing theoretical investigation: it mainly describes the char-
acter of the different feminist groups/feminist approaches; it explains the
existing legal issues women face in post-revolutionary Iran; it explains
gender, state policies, and social changes; and it provides a thick descrip-
tion of the women’s movement, campaigns, and the ordinary women’s
everyday resistance (H. Afshar 1998; Afary 2009; Ahmadi-Khorasani
2013; Badran 2005; Barlow 2012; Bayat 2002, 2007, 2010; Bayat-­
Moghadam 2018; Ghorashi 1996; Moghadam 2002, 2003a, b; Moghissi
1994; Osanloo 2013; Paidar 1995; Sameh 2010; Sedghi 2007; Shahidian
2002). In response to this gap in the literature, the present study will pro-
pose a new interpretation of women’s activism, by working with a
Habermasian deliberative theoretical framework. The scholarly signifi-
cance of this research is that it provides the theoretical grounds for the
analysis of a critical deliberative civil society working for reform in IRI. The
present study adds to that part of the literature by showing how a
Habermasian deliberative model can be applied to analyze civil society
activism in a non-secular society like Iran.
Second, the study will provide a comprehensive analysis of the political
and social role of women’s rights groups and activists in organizing around
women’s interests and social justice and equality issues, in participating in
6 S. GHOREISHI

the formation of a deliberative civil society, and in partnering with various

social groups in the IRI toward the formation of a critical civil society.8.
In other words, this study aims to bring to light the potential of the
Iranian women’s rights groups and individuals to engage in civil society
and to work toward deliberative reform in post-revolutionary Iran—a
potential that is excluded from mainstream scholarship rather than merely
provide a description of the situation and re-explain the existing issues and
barriers to the deliberative process. The practical/ethical goal of the
research is to provide the scholarly and theoretical grounding for the for-
mation of a powerful critical civil society to support deliberative
reform in IRI.

Why Is This Research Important?

First, the research presents a feminist re-reading of Habermas’ theory and
applies this Habermaisan model of public sphere to understand, analyze,
and argue about women’s activism in a non-secular and non-democratic
society like Iran. The Habermasian framework for the analysis of and argu-
ment about women’s activism is the main contribution of this study to the
existing scholarly context. This Habermasian theoretical approach makes
this work different from some existing studies on Iranian women’s activ-
ism based on social movement theories and resistance theory (Bayat 2010;
Bayat-Moghadam 2018; Mahdi 2004; Moghadam 2003a, 2005;
Jalaeipour 2003). Through applying social movement theories or resis-
tance theory, the existing literature mainly examines women’s activism
based on their (hidden) individual forms of resistance or based on their
(visible) collective actions and the formation of collective identity. While
this book has benefited from this valuable group of literature, it applies a
Habermasian theoretical approach to better understand and analyze the
complexities of women’s activism in Iran. The Habermasian framework
helps to introduce a different interpretation of women’s activism, to go
beyond the dichotomy of normal activism or social movements and every-
day forms of resistance, and to consider women’s activism more broadly.
Additionally, since there is a complicated normative content in the lan-
guage of Habermas, the book does not only provide a description and
analysis of women’s activism through the Habermasian lens, but this

8
A critical civil society is defined here as a civil society capable of engaging in a deliberative
process toward reform in Iran.
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

theoretical lens also helps to send messages to the readers of the book
about what women and other social groups can learn from their practices
or can do. (For more details on the existing literature that have been ben-
eficial to this study, please see the next section ‘The Scholarly Context’).
Second, following the inclusive approach to the women’s activism in
Iran, it is worth emphasizing that the study is particularly about women as
it relates to their public sphere activism, including organized and unorga-
nized activism, and relations and associations with broader social groups
toward facilitating the formation of deliberative civil society. The book
does not aim to examine a single ‘women’s movement’ or ‘feminist move-
ment’ in Iran.
Third, the research broadens the scholarly focus beyond the exclusively
theological (re-interpretation of Islam) and legal (discriminatory laws in
the Islamic Constitution) issues the current literature addresses. In doing
so, this study assesses the capacity for the women’s activism to facilitate the
formation of deliberative civil society through collaboration with diverse
societal groups. As it relates to the contents of Women’s journals, such as,
Zanan, feminists’ interviews and speeches, and much of the academic lit-
erature, show that the dominant debates within the women’s movement
are mainly based on the theological, and legal and political issues that
affect Iranian women’s lives after the Islamic Revolution (H. Afshar 1996a,
b; Azam Zanganeh 2006; Kar 1994a, b, 1997b, 2001b, 2010; Najmabadi
1998; Nakanishi 1998; Neshat 1983; Osanloo 2013; Tohidi 1991). I
argue here that focusing exclusively on the legal and theological discus-
sions has in large part created an intellectual feminist discourse that reso-
nates only with those who are in the elite class and those in the intellectual
class. This study will thus make space for a theory and an inclusive approach
to women’s activism in the IRI that can link the women’s rights groups,
individuals, and activists from a diverse social and ideological background
together toward the formation of a pluralist public sphere.
Fourth, in contrast with some of the feminist studies on Iranian wom-
en’s rights in post-revolutionary Iran that highlight the oppressive state
power or the emergence of fundamentalist/political Islam as an obstacle
(Mir-Hosseini 1999; Moallem 2005; Moghissi 1999; Najmabadi 1998;
Tohidi 1991), the present work focuses on the positive capacities of wom-
en’s activism in the context of Iran. Hence, this study is important and
significant since it undertakes to broaden the mainstream scholarly view
on and an analysis of the Iranian women’s activism. The book challenges
the scholarly perspectives that have given too much attention to state
8 S. GHOREISHI

power and underestimated the potential of women’s rights groups and

social activists. Accordingly, I do not explore my research questions using
an oppressor-oppressed paradigm, since this approach does not take into
account the ability of the oppressed to engender meaningful social change.
Instead, I intend to concentrate on the capacity of the Iranian women’s
rights groups and activists to make connections with the diverse social
groups by citing their common concerns to engage in the process of creat-
ing the formation of civil society in Iran. In fact, despite different crack-
downs and the challenge of securitization, social activism, and women’s
activism, in particular, is continuing in the context of IRI. Thus, while I
acknowledge the chilling effects of repressive power on social and political
activism in IRI, the main focus of the study is on the ongoing women’s
public activism in this particular securitized context.
Fifth, in pursuit of an inclusive approach to women’s activism, the study
considers both women’s rights groups and activists, and a number of
diverse social groups, such as, religious minorities, as important civil soci-
ety actors. This contrasts with civil society studies in the Middle East that
focus only on female actors (Krause 2008, 2012) or Iranian studies that
pay attention mainly to male actors in the process of contemporary social-­
political transformations (Abrahamian 1982; Esposito 1990).
The final significance of this study is in challenging various scholars
who argue that Islamic Middle Eastern countries can never establish a
sustainable civil society (Lewis 2003; McDonald 2006; Roy 1996), includ-
ing those who exclude the possibility of communication and consensus
between feminist groups and the other diverse social groups toward creat-
ing the formation of civil society (Krause 2008, 2012). The book will
challenge these studies by focusing on the formation of civil society
through the deliberative process in the IRI.

The Scholarly Context

As mentioned, in regard to a comprehensive study on women’s activism
and civil society in Iran involving the construction of a theoretical ground,
it does not exist. Hence, this current research is distinctive within a schol-
arly context. Nevertheless, considering the historical origins of feminism
in the Middle East, there is a wide range of texts to consider.
The first group can be categorized as the early works (the late nine-
teenth century and the early twentieth century) that are concerned with
the status of women in Muslim societies. Some of this early literature was
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

written by well-known scholars from a theological perspective, or it is

based on Islamic legal process, to clarify the status of women in Islam
generally, and in the Quran. Such works include, for example, those of
Sheikh Mohammad Abdou9 (1849–1905) and Qasim Amin10 (1865–1908)
(Amı ̄n 2000; Kurzman 2002). Another set of such early writings, pro-
duced by famous Muslim feminists is based on observations and personal
experiences from a feminist perspective. Examples of this include the
speeches of Bahithat al-Badiya (1886–1918) (Badran and Cooke 1990),
the writings of Nawal al-Sadaawi (born1931) (El-Saadawi 1982, 1983,
1985, 1988, 1989, 1994, 1997, 2001, 2002) and the works of Naila
Minai based on the existing literature, interviews, and her experiences
(Minai 1981).
The second group of scholarly texts includes some literature which has
focused on a feminist interpretation of the Quran (Barlas 2002; Mernissi
1987, 1991; Wadud 1999). Following the feminist discourse in Muslim
Middle Eastern countries, and after the emergence of Islamic feminism in
the 1990s, some scholarly works have investigated feminism, Islam, funda-
mentalism and Islamic feminism, in general. These works scrutinize
Islamic feminism as a discourse alongside the other existing feminist dis-
courses, especially secular feminism, in some cases with particular atten-
tion to the relationship of these discourses in terms of social, political, and
economic transformations (Badran 2001, 2005, 2009; Badran and Cooke
1990; Barlas 2008; Elsadda et al. 2010; Kandiyoti 1988, 1991, 1996,
Moghadam 1987, 1993, 1994, 2001, 2002, 2003b, 2005; Moghissi
1999; Riham 2011; Seedat 2013; Yamani 1996).
Third, a range of work has been conducted from a legal perspective,
mostly to uncover the gender-discriminatory laws that affect the eco-
nomic, social, and political status of women in the IRI (Kar 1994c, 1997a,
1999a, b, 2000, 2001a) or to reveal the extent to which feminist activism
could affect change in the constitution in Iran (Osanloo 2013).
These three groups of literature provide a great source of historical,
legal, and theological information related to the rights of women in
Muslim majority countries. However, I argue here that focusing

9
Sheikh Mohammad Abdou is a liberal reformer, Egyptian religious figure, and one of the
main founding fathers of Islamic Modernism.
10
Qasim Amin has been the secular jurist, and one of the main founders of Egyptian
National movement and his books are still considered as first works on feminism in the
Arab world.
10 S. GHOREISHI

exclusively on the legal and theological discussions has in large part cre-
ated an elitist intellectual feminist discourse. This study will make space for
theory and an inclusive approach to women’s activism in Iran.
The fourth body of literature, concerning the feminist movement in the
IRI specifically, mostly includes studies written after the 1990s and the
emergence of Islamic feminism. Some of these studies that are based on
Zanan magazine celebrate the emergence of Islamic feminism as feminism
which is capable of working with secular feminism and moving toward
reform in the IRI (Moghadam 2002; Najmabadi 1997, 1998). The major-
ity of this literature has examined the context of post-revolutionary Iran,
to explain the status of women alongside the emergence of Islamic funda-
mentalism, Islamization, and the Islamic constitution. The majority of
studies in this group has attempted to clarify what Islamic feminism fol-
lows theoretically and methodologically; what the main differences are
among the various Iranian feminist groups-specifically Islamic and secular
feminism; and what the relationship is between the Iranian feminists and
Islamic fundamentalists (H. Afshar 1993, 1998; F. Ahmadi 2006; Badran
2009; Ghorashi 1996; Moghadam 2002; Moghissi 1994, 1998, 1999;
Najmabadi 1997, 1998; Paidar 1995; Tohidi 1991).
This study acknowledges the existence of different Iranian feminist
groups, particularly Islamic and secular, and understands the differences
among feminist groups. However, as mentioned, the focal point of the
work is on ‘women’s activism’ rather than Islamic and secular feminism
and their differences. The research assumption is that exclusively consider-
ing Islamic and secular feminist groups in leadership positions and provid-
ing a detailed discussion of their differences would resonate only with
those who are in the elite class and those in the intellectual class. This is in
contrast with the inclusive approach of the study. Additionally, as there are
many debates around Islamic and secular feminism in the context of Iran,
and a large body of literature has extensively considered the relations and
differences between these two feminist discourses, the present study
will avoid a detailed discussion of different feminist groups in Iran. It is
also worth mentioning that mapping the world (‘Iranian women’s activ-
ism’ in this research context) into dichotomies limits the possibilities we
can consider in the way toward achieving justice (Ackerly and True 2010:
26–27). Accordingly, the book will focus on the ongoing story of wom-
en’s activism across these differences. The study will be about women as it
relates to their public sphere activism and their relations and associations
with broader social groups toward facilitating the formation of
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

deliberative civil society. It will not be a study particularly about those

who call themselves feminist, including secular and religious, or those who
are usually identified under these labels; rather, the study will consider
women’s activism more broadly.
Fifth, there is very little if any literature that can be found about civil
society and women in the Middle East. The significant work in this litera-
ture includes case studies on UAE (Krause 2008), Egypt (Krause 2012)
and Turkey (Caha 2013); a study that considers sociology of space in Iran
(Shahrokni 2020); as well as short and valuable articles on gender and civil
society in the Middle East more generally (Al-Ali 2003; Gheytanchi 2001;
Moghadam 2003a). Among the existing case studies, Krause’s case studies
of the UAE and Egypt are valuable resources because of the Islamic con-
text of the cases. By highlighting certain particular indigenous women’s
actions and the role of women in the uprisings in 2011, Krause challenges
several critical conclusions in the literature about Islamic societies. This
includes challenging the claims that Islam and Shari’a law are barriers to
the formation of civil society; that Islam has failed to embrace modernity;
that Muslim social movements are a return to pre-modern and early
Islamic values; and that there is a lack of women’s political agency and
political society in the Middle East because of the patriarchal and oppres-
sive political systems (Lewis 2003; McDonald 2006; Roy 1996).
Nevertheless, the UAE case study (Krause 2008), which mainly consid-
ers the role of women’s networks and gatherings in connection with the
formation of civil society fails to take into account or mention a women’s
movement or its relationship with the existing intersectional groups in
UAE society. Similarly, despite demonstrating the influence of both the
secular and Islamic organizations on the formation of civil society in
Egypt, Krause (2012) does not consider the role of Islamic and secular
feminist groups as social and political players that contribute to this pro-
cess. In addition, Krause’s study of Egypt does not pay enough attention
to the relationship between women’s groups and other social groups
within the society. It concentrates on women’s activism, focusing espe-
cially on the networking that occurred among the private women’s orga-
nizations during the uprising of 2011.
Regarding the short articles on women and civil society in the Middle
East, Moghadam’s article “Engendering Citizenship, Feminizing Civil
Society” (Moghadam 2003a) is mainly a descriptive work on the strategies
the women employed to ‘feminize’ civil society in the region. Even though
the author insists on the vital importance of developing a civil society,
12 S. GHOREISHI

however, unfortunately, fails to propose any alternative means of carrying

this out, and highlights the political and religious barriers within the state
institutions that do not support the development of a civil society. The
second article, “Civil Society in Iran: Politics of Motherhood and the
Public Sphere” (Gheytanchi 2001), mostly based on an analysis of Zanan
magazine, considers Iranian women’s struggles for the translation of their
particular needs as mothers in the family into the discourse of civil society.
The article argues that the public sphere has existed since the 1979 Islamic
revolution and it includes an analysis of the ways women have struggled to
include themselves in civil society. Nevertheless, the author does not com-
prehensively analyze the public sphere, which has excluded a majority of
the women, for example, secular women or a majority of the minority
groups. Gheytanchi bases her analysis on the separation between the non-­
civil and civil spheres however this study does not take this approach. The
article considers the Iranian women’s movement through an oppressor-­
oppressed and resistance paradigm and examines the civil society from a
narrow perspective confined to the role of periodicals. By contrast, the
current study will avoid applying an oppressor-oppressed paradigm, or
analyze civil society based on one indicator, such as women’s periodicals.
In addition, the present study on the analysis of Iranian civil society will
discuss the period from 2001 to the present. Gheytanchi’s article over-
looks the leading role of Iranian women in terms of the formation of criti-
cal civil society and does not investigate the social and political role of
women’s rights groups in the public sphere of the IRI. In contrast, the
present study aims to bring to light the potential of Iranian women’s rights
groups and activists in terms of facilitating the formation of a sustainable
civil society within which women and intersectional groups are able to
actively cooperate and engage in deliberative processes toward reform in
the IRI. The third article on civil society and women in the Middle East,
“Gender and Civil Society in the Middle East” (Al-Ali 2003), offers the
valuable warning that we should avoid generalizations about gender and
civil society in the region due to the existence of diverse traditions, eco-
nomic and political conditions, and cultural practices. This work is mainly
about the women’s actions through NGOs and voluntary organizations
and it highlights the oppressive laws that have confined the activities
of women.
In regards to the book entitled ‘Women in Place: the Politics of Gender
Segregation in Iran’ (Shahrokni 2020), the study is mainly about the soci-
ology of space. The author describes and analyzes how despite the gender
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

segregation policies and the state’s attempt to regulate women’s bodies,

Iranian women’s access to the public sphere has been expanded. It is a
valuable work that focuses on Iranian women’s everyday life and women’s
potentials for making changes in society. The book can be considered as a
great study on gender, state, and sociopolitical analysis. Shahrokni (2020)
helps the readers to better understand the sociopolitical changes that hap-
pen in a religious context like Iran and provides a valuable description of
women’s public activism in specific places like gender-segregated buses,
women-only parks, or stadiums where women are banned to attend men’s
soccer matches. However, the book does not comprehensively consider
women’s activism in some other public spheres, including media or parlia-
mentary and extra-parliamentary spheres that will be considered in this
study. The book does not consider the relationship between women with
some other social groups and individuals. The book does not aim to ana-
lyze how women’s everyday life and practices can/could facilitate the for-
mation of a sustainable critical civil society capable of engaging in
deliberative processes of reform in the country. It seems that the author
mainly aims to provide a descriptive-analytical work about women’s access
to some particular public spheres under the shadow of the politics of gen-
der segregation. So, the author is less concerned about the construction
and application of a particular theoretical foundation for the analysis of
and argument about women’s public sphere activism and civil society in
Iran. While this study has been greatly inspired by many of the literature
in the fifth group, it tries to address gaps and contribute to the existing
knowledge by applying a feminist Habermasian theoretical foundation for
analysis of and argument about Iranian women’s public sphere activism
and its relationship with other social groups and activists aiming to show
how this activism can/could facilitate the formation of a deliberative civil
society in a non-secular context like Iran.
In general, it is important to note that the existing literature on gender
and civil society in Muslim Middle Eastern countries has mostly consid-
ered women’s actions through one specific indicator, either women’s
NGOs, women’s private organizations and everyday actions, or women’s
periodicals. It has not, however, analyzed the development of relationships
between the women’s rights activists and groups, and some other social
groups in these societies as a means of building a powerful critical civil
society.
The sixth area of scholarship I have identified, concerning the relation-
ship between the feminist discourses and the other social groups in the IRI
14 S. GHOREISHI

consists of only one comprehensive work, written by Nayaereh Tohidi

(2009). Tohidi, a prominent Iranian feminist writes about the status of
ethnic and religious minorities in the political situation of IRI. Along with
the literature mentioned, on gender and civil society in some Muslim
Middle Eastern countries, Tohidi’s exceptional work does not particularly
consider the links between the women’s rights activists and groups and
some social groups like ethnic and religious minorities. Even so, Tohidi’s
research is evidence that the rights of minority groups are a concern for
some Iranian feminists.
Notwithstanding the lack of a comprehensive analysis of Iranian wom-
en’s activism and its relationships with some other social groups in the
Middle East, the literature identified above is a valuable academic resource
because it challenges the orientalist arguments on civil society and women
in Muslim societies. Most of the existing scholarly literature on women
and civil society in this region are descriptive works that focus on women’s
actions and strategies toward feminizing the civil society. What is lacking
is a critical analysis of the relationships between the different women’s
rights groups/activists, and networks and their relationships with intersec-
tional groups regarding the formation of civil society.
The existing literature is a good source of information on the theologi-
cal and historical origins of feminism in the Islamic context of the Middle
East. The scholarly literature helps readers gain a comprehensive under-
standing of the different feminist discourses in the Middle East and par-
ticularly the IRI. Yet, the scholarly work on feminism in IRI is more
descriptive and less analytical. While it offers a clear picture of features of
different feminist articulations and achievements (H. Afshar 1998;
F. Ahmadi 2006; Badran 2005; Bayat 2010; Ghorashi 1996; Moghadam
2001; Moghissi 1994; Najmabadi 1997; Osanloo 2013; Tohidi 1991),
unfortunately, it fails to give a clear picture of the failures, issues, and
problems which are important to investigate. As such, based on a review
of the literature, it is usually limited to the status of women after the
Islamic revolution that is based on an accurate analysis of the new Islamic
constitution (Stewart 2009; Kar 1999a, b, 2001a, b; Mir-Hosseini 1998,
1999; Moghissi 1994; Najmabadi 1998; Nakanishi 1998).
Furthermore, the analysis is confined to subjects, such as, what those in
the feminist movement have done since the revolution; what this move-
ment achieved, sometimes by citing statistics; and how the state has reacted
to this movement including women’s activism and suppressed it (Bayat
2010; Barlow 2012; Moghadam 2002, 2003a; Najmabadi 1998; Osanloo
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

2013; Tohidi 1991). For instance, two works on feminist activism in IRI,
written by Arezoo Osanloo (2013) and Rebecca L. Barlow (2012), pro-
vide a clear understanding of the current situation of feminists and their
advocacy of legal reforms in the IRI. However, these works have failed to
adopt a critical, problem-driven approach to highlight the problems in the
women’s movement, particularly the theoretical issues, in order to provide
a basis for improving the movement. Investigating and responding to the
problems and issues facing the women’s movement in IRI will provide a
better and more practical and theoretical future for the movement.
It is also worth mentioning that most of the existing-mentioned-­
scholarly works are conducted either from a historical (Badran 2001,
2005, 2009; Badran and Cooke 1990), sociological (Gheytanchi 2001;
Moghadam 1987, 1993, 1994, 2001, 2003a, b; Shahrokni 2020; Tohidi
1998, 2002, 2009), or developmental perspective (Kandiyoti 1988,
1991). Thus, it is not easy to find a work based on a political science per-
spective. Although there are only limited works, which address the defects
of the feminist discourses in the Middle East and particularly the feminist
movement in the IRI (Ghorashi 1996; Moghadam 2001, 2002, 2003a;
Tohidi 2011), they are mostly confined to general descriptive works that
do not propose possible solutions.
Concerning the issue of civil society and women, as mentioned, there is
also a limited number of works, mostly about the importance of global
civil society, the global state of women’s rights, the interplay between the
local and the global factors, women’s networks, collective actions and
transnational feminist networks (Krause 2008; Moghadam 2000, 2003a,
2005; Tohidi 2002, 2003). In only a few cases, this literature briefly, and
in general terms, points to the formation of civil society as a necessary
condition of democracy and women’s emancipation, and then it high-
lights the religious and political barriers to the formation of civil society in
the IRI (Moghadam 2003a). In addition, some scholars have either exag-
gerated the achievements of the feminist movement in the IRI or they
have underestimated the importance of the basic differences among the
different women’s rights groups. Most of the scholars celebrate the occa-
sional cooperation between the Islamic and the secular feminist groups
without adapting a critical problem-driven approach. The latter is neces-
sary to identify the issues and provide a foundation for a sustainable, long-­
term consensus and cooperation between them, and between these two
main wings of feminism and the other diverse social groups working
toward deliberative social reform.
16 S. GHOREISHI

Consequently, although there is almost no work on women’s rights

groups and activists in the Middle East and their relationships with other
social groups toward the formation of a deliberative civil society, in some
sections, this research is partly inspired by Badran’s works on Islamic and
secular feminism (Badran 2005, 2009), Bayat’s works on social activism
and politics in the Iranian society (Bayat 2010, 2013), Moghadam’s works
on different feminist discourses in the IRI (Moghadam 2001, 2002),
Moghadam’s work on the importance of civil society in the Middle East
and particularly in the IRI (Moghadam 2003a), and Nayereh Tohidi’s
writings, concerning the right of minority groups and regarding the idea
of intersectionality (Tohidi 2002, 2009).
The most important gap that this research will fill is highlighting the
lack of scholarly literature on women’s activism in the IRI and its relation-
ship with other social groups working toward the formation of a delibera-
tive civil society.

Research Methodology
Here I adopt Harding’s definition of methodology as a theory and analysis
of how research does or should proceed (Harding 1987: 2–3).
The methodology that the present research will follow is a form of
feminist methodology. “For feminists, it is a moral and political rather
than a scientific discussion that has served as the paradigm of rational dis-
course” (Harding 1987: 12; Ramazanoglu and Holland 2002: 15). Since
there is more than one moral and political position within feminism, there
have always been contested debates on feminist methodology.
Although methodology is usually considered as a particular set of meth-
ods or way of doing research, a feminist methodology is not a series of
particular methods or guidelines for research, like a protocol (Ackerly and
True 2010: 6). A feminist project is understood as ‘feminist’ by its research
question, by the theoretical basis of the project and by following a feminist
research ethic throughout the research process rather than by any particu-
lar method (s) applied or specific normative commitments (Ackerly and
True 2010: 6–7).
The feminist research ethic followed in this study refers to a commit-
ment to pay particular attention to marginalization, silences, absences,
interconnections, and a sensitivity to ‘situatedness’ (Ackerly and True
2010: 22–23).
 1 INTRODUCTION 17

The feminist methodology followed by this study is first, based on the

fact that a female researcher will study women and their activism. Second,
the methodology of the research is identified as feminist since it is shaped
by a feminist version/feminist re-reading of the existing (traditional) theo-
ries, and it is grounded in women’s activism and experience (Harding
1987: 3; Ramazanoglu and Holland 2002:16). Third, the current research
can be considered as feminist since it aims to contribute knowledge that
might be useful for the reformation/transformation of gendered injustice
and subordination within society as a form of social change (Burns and
Walker 2005; Ramazanoglu and Holland 2002: 147). In other words, it is
feminist research because it can help facilitate the ways toward social
change by following a feminist approach to the theory (Burns and Walker
2005: 66). Fourth, the researcher will follow the aim of enabling diverse
women’s voices and experiences to be heard (Ramazanoglu and Holland
2002: 15). The researcher seeks to produce knowledge of social life, social
activism and collective public action in this research that are reasonable
according to the evidence and telling some truth (Ramazanoglu and
Holland 2002: 15–16).

Research Theory and Conceptualization

The theory, that is proposed and followed in this research, will shape the
main research question on women’s rights activists and groups and how
they can address the interests of women while engaging with other social
groups to facilitate the formation of deliberative civil society. The theory
can help the researcher to conceptualize and explain the different aspects
of social life and women’s activism and their interconnections (Ramazanoglu
and Holland 2002). The choice of theory is tightly related to the research-
er’s ontological assumptions (Ramazanoglu and Holland 2002: 151). The
main ontological assumptions that have affected the choice of theory in
the current research are: (1) citizens have the capacity to communicate
regardless of their self-interests; (2) the (feminist) subject is situated in the
(specific historical) context while it is capable of challenging this
situatedness.
According to these two main ontological assumptions and considering
the specific historical context of Iran, the research bases its theoretical
framework for the analysis of, and the argument about, civil society and
the women’s activism mainly on a Habermasian deliberative foundation
(Chap. 2). Habermas’ thought is not unfamiliar to scholars and even some
18 S. GHOREISHI

clerics in the IRI due to his visit to the country in 2002 (Shaffer 2006). It
is argued that Khatami’s proposal for ‘dialogue among civilizations’ (Petito
2004; United Nations 2000) and his acknowledgment of the concept of
dialogue and civil society were derived from his reading of Habermas
(Shaffer 2006). Furthermore, considering the contemporary political his-
tory of the IRI, it is credible to conclude that the reformists are inclined
to seek a consensus based on communication because it would probably
be more sustainable than a consensus as a result of a provisional hegemony
(Mouffe 2000: 104). Iranians experienced the latter during the 1979
Islamic revolution. In terms of reaching a consensus, it has been an unsuc-
cessful experience, having turned into an exclusive and oppressive Islamic
system (Dabashi 2011). The Islamic revolution’s model of consensus
through hegemony is associated with the elimination of diversity within
society; the suppression of differences; political oppression; and finally, the
formation of a biased, engineered consensus. Accordingly, the current
research presupposes that consensus through hegemony can be contrasted
and viewed with the acceptance of difference and receptivity toward oth-
ers. Within the non-democratic, heterogeneous context of the IRI, the
consensus through communication, acceptance of diversity, and receptiv-
ity toward others would be a necessary ground for the formation of a civil
society capable of engaging in deliberative processes for democratic reform.
Thus, I will draw on Habermasian theory since it is a fundamental
framework for deliberative democracy and civil society, and it can help the
researcher to analyze what has happened/is happening in Iran. In addi-
tion, from a feminist perspective, I will also draw on some other theories,
including counterpublics, to extend the research theoretical framework,
and to develop a normative argument about what can and should happen.
In fact, since there is a complicated normative content in the language of
Habermas, while I am analyzing women’s activism through the
Habermasian lens, simultaneously, this theoretical lens helps me to send
messages to my readers about what women and other social groups can
learn from their practices or can do. These action-oriented messages are
implicit in the normative dimension of Habermasian model that empha-
sizes non-violent action, the importance of flexibility, forbearance, com-
municative management of conflicts, a reflexive attitude regarding their
claims, and self-assessment (see Chap. 2 for more details). So, I would like
to emphasize here that this normative aspect of the present research is
completely different from a prescriptive dimension or a series of policy
recommendations.
 1 INTRODUCTION 19

In the context of this study, civil society’s institutional core encom-

passes those non-governmental and non-economic connections, networks,
(voluntary) associations, and organizations that anchor the communica-
tion structures of the public sphere (Habermas 1996: 367). In the context
of the study, discussions on the civil society and public sphere do not refer
to one formal overarching public sphere; rather, there is an emphasis on
the multiplicity of publics where private persons come together as a pub-
lic—as a critical force within the society (see Chap. 2 for details). The
book emphasizes the importance of a society within which we can see
active citizens, collective work/people-centered work, and different pub-
lic spaces that engage various citizens in deliberative processes.
In the context of this study and within its theoretical framework, activ-
ism can be of any kind of activity ranging from individual to collective
action, encompassing different types of activity ranging from apparently
political activities to pre-figurative political activities, from visibly public
social activities in the actual world to cyber-public social activities on
cyberspace. What is essential regarding these multiple forms of activism is
that they reinforce and enhance communicative structures within the pub-
lic sphere and in a proceduralist model bring about social change. In gen-
eral, a social movement must be able to bring social change in a country.
So, although this work will not be a particular study on Iranian social
movements, the Habermasian theoretical-analytical lens applied in this
study can create a new paradigm for future studies on the analysis and
critique of Iranian social movements, in particular, the women’s movement.
Furthermore, it is worth explaining that the research approach to the
role of NGOs is tightly connected to the research view to civil society and
the public sphere, as explained earlier. It means that the book insists that
NGOs alongside or at times in collaboration with other non-­governmental,
non-economic associations, organizations, and networks can play an
important role in preserving the communicative structures of the public
sphere. In the context of this research, there is an emphasis on the plurality
of publics that have been formed in response to marginalization, igno-
rance, exclusion, injustice, or inequality from the wider (dominant) pub-
lic. So, NGOs, where individuals come together as a public, can help their
members to articulate their oppositional interpretations of their needs and
interests or can be spaces that engage different groups of people in delib-
erative processes. The book shows that NGOs can raise social issues that
have been usually ignored within the wider dominant public. NGOs can
play a vital role in promoting dialogue, deliberation, the culture of
20 S. GHOREISHI

deliberative cooperation, and culture of tolerance and compromise in soci-

ety. NGOs can play a role in developing public conversation and the for-
mation of public opinion. Additionally, the study understands that NGOs
at times in communicative interaction, cooperation, and consensus with
some other (counter) publics can affect the process of decision making.
However, regarding civil society organizations, I would like to acknowl-
edge that finding these forms of organizations in a context like Iran is very
difficult or more difficult than identifying them in a democratic country.
For example, I am sensitive to the fact that in Iran there are semi-NGOs
that I prefer to call them only ‘GO’ since they are state-sponsored organi-
zations working under the label of NGO (see Chap. 4). In the context of
IRI, there is not enough support of real (independent) NGOs in different
fields, such as women’s rights, human rights, environment, and so on; in
fact, there are many policies and obstacles which restrict the activism of
these forms of civil society organizations. Accordingly, throughout the
book, I will emphasize ‘Independent’ NGOs. Regarding research inter-
views with members of NGOs, I am acquainted with some important
independent organizations and their main members because of years of
living in Iran as an active citizen, and a political science student concerned
about women’s rights, and children’s rights. So, I can confidently say that
participants in this research have no membership in any governmental or
state-sponsored organization. I am aware of specific nuances regarding
civil society organizations in Iran, and for this reason, I have been careful
to find members of publics that in my research framework considered as
counter-publics/oppositional forces.
Following from research theory, research conceptualization, and
research ontology, it is now essential to clarify the research method and
method of analysis.

Research Method and the Scope of the Study

A research method refers to the techniques and ways of gathering evi-
dence, and procedures used for exploring the social reality (Harding 1987:
2; Ramazanoglu and Holland 2002: 11). To some degree, the choice of
research methods is determined according to the case of a study that is
scrutinizing the Iranian women’s activism and the civil society as in the
present research. It must be noted that the scope of the study can also
affect the way of proceeding in gathering the data and evidence. Hence,
 1 INTRODUCTION 21

first, the scope of the study must be defined by a specific period and par-
ticular forms of activity.
In examining the role of Iranian women’s activism in building a delib-
erative civil society, the book limits the scope of the research to Iranian
women’s activism between 1979 and early 2017 with a particular focus on
this form of activism after 1997. This specific time limitation has been
selected based on different reasons. First, despite the domination of a
theocratic system after 1979, Iranian women’s activism has played an
important role in contemporary Iran’s political evolution. Second, the
present study pays particular attention to women’s activism after 1997 at
the time the reformist movement emerged with the main slogan of the
development of civil society. Third, the study will consider women’s activ-
ism in Iran’s public sphere by early 2017 because Iran has been located in
the tension-prone area of the Middle East and its social, political, and
economic conditions are rapidly and unexpectedly fluctuating.
Alongside this time limitation, the present study is limited to the wom-
en’s and civil society activism while acknowledging the repressive nature of
the existing political system. As mentioned, in the scholarly context, most
of the existing literature has considered the effect of the Islamic system on
women in Iran, and this is not the focus of this study.
Despite the establishment of a patriarchal constitution, from the early
years of the revolution, different women’s groups have resisted and used
any aperture in the system to enter the public sphere. A year after the revo-
lution, many women entered into the public arena as nurses, doctors, law-
yers, and so forth, during the IranIraq war (1980–1988) as well as martyrs’
wives who raised their oppositional voices against the discriminatory law
of guardianship11 (Kar and Hoodfar 1996; Kar 2001b). In fact, despite the
patriarchal constitution, certain traditionally gendered spheres remained
open to women and offered opportunities. As an example, since the early
years of the revolution, women, including women from traditional and
religious families, have played a prominent role in the field of education
(Afzali and Hoodfar 2007: 43; Ebadi 1998: 44; Hoodfar 2010: 489) and
health (Ahmadi-Khorasani 2013; Hoodfar 1996, 2009, 2010). After
entering into the public domain as students, teachers, or health volun-
teers, Iranian women gradually developed their public participation and

11
Fathers of war martyrs became the guardian of the martyrs’ children and also received
childcare payments from the Martyr Foundation (Bonyad-e Shahid) (Kar and Hoodfar 1996;
Kar 2001b: 180).
22 S. GHOREISHI

deliberative engagement in the public sphere through a multilevel and

contextual activism.
Accordingly, the case/object of the present study is particularly women
as it relates to their public sphere activism toward facilitating the forma-
tion of deliberative civil society. Following from this, the study is bounded
to the activity of groups and individuals inside Iran, specifically in three
fields: women’s activism in the media (see Chap. 3), civil society activism
(see Chap. 4), and parliamentary and extra (outside)-parliamentary activ-
ism (see Chap. 5).
This research presents a study of Iranian women’s activism to show how
Iranian women’s activism has developed and operated within a particular
‘political field,’ which is revolutionary and theocratic. The study aims to
develop a richer understanding of Iranian women’s activism by working
within a deliberative theoretical framework. Through this study, the
research describes women’s public activism and their achievements, and
challenges by using different methods of gathering data and evidence, and
different ways of analysis, including semi-structured interviews, observa-
tions, personal communications, online resources, publications, newspa-
pers, journals, and analysis of journals’ and newspapers’ contents, images,
documentaries/movies, and so forth, though not an in-depth-text/con-
tent/documentary analysis.

Method of Analysis
As mentioned, the commitment of the feminist methodology of the pres-
ent research and the importance of this study is to make a space for a
theory that can advance the practices of women’s rights groups, activists,
and some other social groups to move together toward the formation of a
public sphere that is capable of engaging in certain deliberative processes
of reform and justice. The theory proposed/used will guide a discussion
of the findings, and an analysis of the collected data (Hsieh and Shannon
2005: 1283). This form of analysis is identified as a form of ‘directed con-
tent analysis’ and the main aim is to “validate or extend conceptually a
theoretical framework or theory” (Hsieh and Shannon 2005: 1281).
The directed approach to content analysis will be constructive for the
current study since further description can benefit the theoretical frame-
work that is proposed for the research. The main strength of a directed
approach to content analysis is that the existing/proposed theory can be
supported or/and extended (Hsieh and Shannon 2005: 1283). Although
 1 INTRODUCTION 23

this method of analysis is mostly used for the data that can be coded, it is
not necessarily limited to this form of data (Hsieh and Shannon 2005).
For instance, the directed approach to content analysis can be used to
analyze data that has been collected through interviews with a focus on
the content of the transcripts (Hsieh and Shannon 2005). Therefore, this
study will use the directed approach for the analysis of the contents of
journals, newspapers, speeches, movies/documentaries, statements,
images, interviews, personal communications, and so forth.
Considering the limitations of neatly applying the directed content
analysis to the present research, I will apply a revised version of this method
of analysis in line with the research methodology, the research subject and
questions, and the scope of the research. According to this revised directed
approach to the content analysis, first, the researcher will identify the key
concepts, variables, and practices as initial (supporting) data/evidence;
second, by using the theoretical research framework, the researcher will
provide a new interpretation, description, and analysis of those concepts
and practices (Hsieh and Shannon 2005).
In the study, I apply a form of directed content analysis to gather the
evidence regarding the interconnections and cooperation among various
women’s rights groups, and between these groups and some other social
groups, and the potential of Iranian women’s activism to help form a
deliberative, critical civil society, with the aim to support or even extend
the research theoretical framework. Accordingly, while the research has
been benefited from a wide range of literature on women’s movement and
the variety of campaigns, following the theoretical aims and the research
method of analysis, I draw more on some specific literature-selected litera-
ture—that can help to better elaborate on Habermasian concepts and
show how the Habermasian deliberative model can be applied to analyze
a critical deliberative civil society in a non-secular country like Iran.

Research Limitations
The first limitation refers to the content analysis of the women’s journals
and magazines because it was not easy to access all of the magazines and
issues published until early 2017.
During the fieldwork, I could hardly find ways to go to the library of
Planning and Budget organization to read some of the women’s maga-
zines, particularly Zanan. Even in the library, I could not find the issues of
Zanan that were published between 2005 and 2008 since, during this
24 S. GHOREISHI

period, the dominant government of Ahmadinejad (2005–2013) had

abolished the Planning and Budget Organization. Also, to have access to
issues of Zanan-e-Emrouz published between 2016 and 2018, I did not
have a chance to easily order them from overseas; so, I asked family mem-
bers to purchase and post some of them to me. Hence, as mentioned
previously, the analysis will be selective and will focus in particular on the
Zanan magazine, as the most important women’s magazine in the IRI. As
an example, the study will selectively employ an analysis of particular issues
of Zanan that were published between 1992 and 2008 and new issues that
were published between 2014 and 2017 under the new name,
Zanan-e Emrouz.
The second limitation is the lack of literature on the lived experiences
of women’s rights activists and the present situation of the civil society in
Iran. Likewise, there is not enough literature and documents about the
significant movements and campaigns during the recent decades in Iran,
such as the 2009 Green Movement, the One Million Signatures Campaign,
and other campaigns related to the women’s activism. To address this limi-
tation, the research will rely on interviews, personal observations, personal
communications, personal experiences over the years of living in Iran or
traveling to Iran, and a personal collection of old newspapers. It is worth
reiterating that the research cannot merely rely on interviews due to the
securitized atmosphere in the country.
In 2016 during my travels to Iran for the fieldwork, the political atmo-
sphere was even worse than I expected it would be. There was a securi-
tized atmosphere, and this situation negatively affected the process of data
collection and interviews while I carried out the fieldwork. It was not at all
easy to reach the interviewees; it was incredibly risky to make a connection
with intersectional groups, in particular, religious/ethnic/LGBT
minorities.
Despite security pressures on minority groups and women’s rights
groups, at times, Iranian women’s rights activists have worked with mem-
bers of these groups both in the field of media activism and civil society
activism (see Chaps. 3 and 4 for more details). Additionally, from time to
time, some of the feminists and women’s rights activists have supported
the members of minority groups. A good example is the women’s rights
activists campaigning to free Roya Tolooyee, the Kurdish feminist, from
prison (see Chap. 4). However, as mentioned, due to severe securitized
atmosphere in 2016, it was not possible to easily identify and interview
people from intersectional groups for the primary research. The security
 1 INTRODUCTION 25

pressure on minority groups has negatively affected the research process to

the extent that the study could not substantially be engaged with intersec-
tionality. Nevertheless, the research emphasizes ‘difference’ as a necessary
resource for a deliberative politics and acknowledges the existence of inter-
sectional forms of difference and injustice in a heterogeneous society like
Iran. In fact, the study acknowledges intersectional difference, and will
point to it when it is relevant in discussing women’s activism.
Furthermore, due to the securitized atmosphere, it was not an easy task
to build trust and convince people to participate in the research. Even
though many social activists and ordinary people were eager to participate
in the research to share their experiences, only some of them agreed to
participate in an individual interview and permit recording the interview.
Thus, the third limitation had to do with the securitized atmosphere
and the political situation in Iran in general at the time I was collecting the
data for this research. In terms of the security issues, the first strategy that
I followed was to meet some of the prominent activists within the NGOs
personally and then, get the contact details of others to continue the for-
mal interviews, or informal personal communications later on from New
Zealand through ‘imo’ or ‘Skype.’ Since building trust was not easy, the
second strategy has to do with relying on personal communications and
observations by going out within the society, creating networks and forg-
ing friendships, attending different gatherings, workshops, visiting specific
galleries, bookshops, restaurants, cafes, and so on. These personal obser-
vations and communications were so constructive and valuable for this
research to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the present society
of Iran. Nevertheless, the political situation in Iran has not yet changed,
and it has even gotten worse than it was in 2016. So, considering the ethi-
cal aspects of the research, the names of the interviewees, even those who
are prominent, and the names of the organizations and places will remain
anonymous in the book. Table 1 is the list of interviewees who agreed to
participate in an individual formal interview and permit recording the
interview:
The fourth limitation refers to the time and funding restrictions that
caused a difficult situation to continue the study up to 2019–2020. Since
it was hard to keep the study updated until today, the current research
could not comprehensively describe and analyze Iranian women’s cyber-­
activism in today’s society. However, throughout the work, I have
explained the role of cyber-counterpublics and briefly provided some
examples of cyber-activism.
26 S. GHOREISHI

Table 1 List of interviewees

Code Basic Identity Data Collection
Methods

01 Activist/University Lecturer/Artist/ethnic minority/25–35 Interview-Iran

years old
02 Activist/NGO manager/ Middle age Interview-Iran
03 Activist/senior member in NGO/Middle age Interview-Iran
04 Activist/senior member in NGO/Middle age Interview-Iran
05 Male Activist/NGO manager/Middle age Interview-Iran
06 Male Activist/Charitable organization/ 25–35 years old Interview-Iran
07 Activist/Social Worker/former-official/Middle age Interview-imo app
08 Activist/Scholar/Psychologist/Middle age Interview-imo app
09 Exiled Activist/Middle age Interview-imo app

Considering the women’s cyber-activism as an important subject of

study on Iranian women’s activism, in 2017–2018, I finished an article
about ‘My Stealthy Freedom FaceBook Page’ analyzing this form of cyber-­
activism through applying theory of counterpublics and cyber-­
counterpublics. The article presented in 2017 New Zealand Political
Studies Association Conference (Ghoreishi 2017).
Following my interest in studying current Iranian women’s cyber-­
activism, in Mid-2020, I started a new research on women’s online activ-
ism and the development of the public sphere and deliberative processes
of democratization in non-secular societies. However, it is a self-funded
research, and so, it is slowly moving forward. It is worth insisting that the
women’s cyber-activism in today’s Iran is an important subject of study
that could be/must be explored by future studies from different political
and sociological approaches.

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 CHAPTER 2

Theoretical Framework

One of the major aims of this study is to examine how different women’s
rights groups and activists can address the interests of women while engag-
ing with other social groups and actors to facilitate the formation of a criti-
cal civil society capable of engaging in deliberative processes of democratic
reform in a diverse society. Since the study is mainly concerned about
deliberation and cooperation among different social groups toward the
formation of civil society, I plan to provide a theoretical foundation for the
formation of a pluralist-deliberative civil society with reference to dis-
course ethics and deliberative politics. I will draw substantially here on the
work of Jurgen Habermas; and from a feminist approach, I will supple-
ment his work by drawing on some other theories, including the ideas of
Nancy Fraser, Talal Asad, and others.
First of all, this chapter will focus on the key relevant Habermasian
concepts including the theory of the public sphere and rationalization,
communicative action, and his discourse ethics and deliberative politics.
Second, in the two sections that follow, this chapter will consider the
application of the Habermasian model in pluralist, diverse, multi-layered,
and non-secular societies. In fact, the chapter aims to investigate to which
extent and how the formation of a Habermasian critical deliberative civil
society can be capable of engaging in democratic reform and how this can
be possible in a diverse, stratified, and non-secular context such as that in
Iran? What are the obstacles? And how can we deal with these
limitations?

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 35

Switzerland AG 2021
S. Ghoreishi, Women’s Activism in the Islamic Republic of Iran,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70232-8_2
36 S. GHOREISHI

A Habermasian Model of Deliberative Engagement

in the Public Sphere

To talk about the deliberative engagement of various social groups in the

public sphere, it is important to understand the Habermasian deliberative
and communicative model. Habermas has always been concerned about
critical dialogue within the public sphere, and his idea of deliberative
democracy has strong roots in his theory of communicative action.
Habermas’ theory of discourse ethics is a fundamental text for the theories
on deliberative democracy and the public sphere. So, in the following, I
will focus on three of the main Habermasian concepts including the public
sphere, communicative action, and discourse ethics.

The Public Sphere and Rationalization

In his first work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere,
Habermas argues that the public sphere itself is a particular domain, the
public domain versus the private (Habermas 1991: 2). Although Habermas
started his work with a sharp distinction between the public sphere and
the private sphere, this distinction gradually becomes blurred in his later
works. In his work Between Facts and Norms, Habermas points to the fact
that the public and the private sphere rely on each other. He explains how
social issues echo in the private spheres, refine and feed reactions in an
amplified form to the public sphere (Habermas 1996: 367). To demon-
strate this close connection between the private and the public sphere,
from a historical viewpoint, he argues that the “modern bourgeois public
sphere developed in the European societies of the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries as the sphere of private persons [ who ] come together as
a public” (Habermas 1996: 366). In fact, for Habermas, to have a strong
public sphere, it is necessary to have both a strong private sphere and a
strong civil society (Crawford 2009). He believes that today, civil society’s
institutional core encompasses “those nongovernmental and non-eco-
nomic connections and voluntary associations that anchor the communi-
cation structures of the public sphere” (Habermas 1996: 366). The center
of civil society includes a chain of associations that “institutionalizes prob-
lem-solving discourses on questions of general interest inside the frame-
work of organized public spheres” (Habermas 1996: 367).
Habermas also pays attention to different forms of exclusion in the
public sphere. His concern arises from the privileged status of some
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 CHAPTER V
LAST PREPARATIONS
Committed thus by my own quiet words, involuntarily spoken as
though by a volition apart from me, I strove for calmness. A
confusion of mind possessed me. But Bee was quite calm; and
presently, though within me the surge of apprehension continued,
outwardly I believed I did not show it.
Three of us going into the shadows. And Will said, not to linger this
time in the Borderland, but to go on—to penetrate into the depths of
the Unknown realm beyond. The very thought of it brought a score of
anxious questions to my mind; but when I tried to voice them Will
crisply checked me.
I realized now, with an emotion tinged by a faint whimsicality, that
Will and Bee had summoned me here this evening with an
anticipation of just this outcome. They had foreseen that we all three
would make the trip together. They were prepared for it; and Will's
first trial had been experimental wholly.
Thus, I found them ready. Two others of the knitted suits were at
hand. Two other batteries. But we—Bee and I—had been seemingly
indispensable in aiding Will. His departure—Bee had been by his
side to remove the battery wires. And far more important, when he
returned, his solidifying shadow had lain beneath the mattress. We
had been there to raise him up, to hold him until the substance of his
body was great enough for the mattress to sustain it. Suppose we
had not raised him? Suppose while yet within the mattress space—
or within the space the floor of the room itself was occupying—the
growing solidity of him had demanded empty space of its own? The
thought brought a shudder—a thought too horrible to be dwelt upon.
During our brief preparations—which Will hurried with a grim haste—
he did not once volunteer to explain his experience. And only once
did Bee question him.
"You'll tell us exactly what we are to do?"
"Yes. Presently—before we start."
"You said there was need of haste? A real danger to our world here
—from those—other beings?"
He was arranging the batteries. "Yes, Bee. A real danger."
"You think we can repulse them? Just three of us going in there?
Strangers—"
Strangers indeed. No adventurers into other lands in all the dim
pages of history could have felt, or been, such strangers.
He interrupted her. "We will do our best. It is necessary—our
efforts.... We will have plenty of time for consultation, Bee. You will
understand, when we are there.... Pour three glasses of water, Rob."
My fingers were trembling; it seemed strange that Bee could
maintain such calmness. But it was simulated for she said:
"Will, is it—is it very horrible—the changing, I mean?"
He stopped before her, put his hands on her shoulders. His face, so
set with its purpose he had forgotten the human feelings of her,
softened momentarily with affection.
"No—it is strange—frightening at first. But not horrible. And you
forget it soon. Then it's merely strange, awesome—you'll see—"
He broke off, turned away, and as momentarily his gaze touched me,
he smiled. "Awesome, Rob. But for me, this second time, it will be no
great ordeal. Even exhilarating—strangely so. You'll see.... We're
about ready, Bee."
She took her woven suit and retired. I was soon undressed and into
mine. Its fabric was queerly light of weight, and for all its metallic
quality it stretched readily, almost like rubber as I put it on. Somehow
donning that garment made me shudder. It seemed unnaturally chill
as it touched my skin.
Bee presently returned, garbed as we were. In spite of my
perturbation, my fear of the dread experience which lay before me, I
felt a thrill of admiration as I beheld her. So slim of figure, straight of
limb, graceful; and with her grave, intelligent face full of one set
purpose—to aid us in every way she could.
"We're ready," said Will briefly. "Here are your belts."
We fastened the broad belts about our waists. The pouches each
contained some small object.
"Don't bother them now," Will objected, as I would have examined
them. "Later, when we get—in there, will be time enough.... We're
ready. What we are to do now is simple—I think there will be no
mishap. We will seat ourselves on the mattress. You two may lie
down; I shall sit up this time."
"Why?" I demanded.

He smiled. "It is only the first time one feels the sensations that they
are disturbing. I'm confident of that. We will have the batteries beside
us—" Bee was already placing them on the mattress. "At my signal,
we will each disconnect our own. Should either of you be unable—be
overcome—I will do it for you."
"But the coming back," I suggested. "We raised you up—"
His smile held a faint ironic amusement. "Don't you think, Rob, we
can leave that to its proper time?" He saw my look and added, with
the ready apology which made him so lovable:
"Naturally you are apprehensive. But I've planned for that, of course.
There are many places where the level of this Borderland—as I call it
—coincides exactly with the surface of our own realm. The back
corner of the garden outside, for instance. I have remarked it—I can
find it—when the time comes for us to return."
Bee said, "Will, I've been wondering—you were gone five or six
hours. Were you in there very long?"
His smile was enigmatic. "You can have no conception of this
experience—I cannot answer that, Bee—that's why I haven't told you
anything—you are so soon to feel and see it for yourself." He was
impatient for the start. "I think we're ready. There is so little to do—no
chance to forget anything."
With sudden irrelevant thought my heart leaped. That hostile
watching spectre.... My anxious glance traveled the room. Bee said,
"It's not here—I've been expecting—I'm so thankful it's not here."
It was not to be seen. I was relieved for that, at least. With a last
deliberation we all three seated ourselves on the mattress. Will was
between Bee and me. We connected the batteries; I held mine at my
side, my nerve-shaken fingers trembling, though inwardly I cursed
them, fumbled at the switch to make sure I could control it. The
pellets were in the palm of my other hand; the glass of water was
within reach.
Will said earnestly, "One last thing—and this is important—more
important than you realize. Whatever comes, we must keep together.
Remember that. You two—strive always to keep with me—close
beside me. Whatever impulse you feel—fight it—do not yield to it.
Remember you must stay by me."
The words themselves were simple to grasp. Yet beneath them lay a
vague import, a suggestion of what was to come, which seemed
unutterably sinister. I heard Bee murmuring.
"Yes, I understand."
I said, and marveled at the steadiness of my voice, "Very well, Will—
I'll remember."
He said, "Now." I saw his hand go to his mouth. Now I must take the
pellets. Within me a torrent of revulsion surged. I must take the
pellets—at once. Bee was raising her glass of water. My hand went
up; I felt the pellets in my mouth. Acrid. A faint acrid taste spread on
my tongue. And then with a gulp of the water I had swallowed them.
Breathless I waited, with heart thumping like a hammer, my head
reeling, not from the pellets but from this excitement, fright, which
swept me uncontrolled.
Will's voice said, "Rob. Your battery—switch it on."
My fingers found the little switch; pushed it. I felt a faint tingling of my
limbs; a sudden nausea possessed me; my senses whirled; the
room, which all at once had grown very sharp of outline, turned
nearly black.
 CHAPTER VI
THE MIND SET FREE
I did not faint, and in a moment I felt better. My vision cleared; the
room regained almost its normal aspect. But the nausea persisted. I
felt a desire to lie down. Will was sitting erect, but beyond him I saw
Bee lying on her side, facing us. I reclined on one elbow, holding up
my head that I might look around me.
The faintness was gone. The sweat of weakness was upon me, my
forehead cold and clammy; but I could feel my heart beating strongly.
When was the change to start? It seemed ages since I had taken
those pellets.
Then I heard the hum. It sounded as though apart from me; but I
knew it was not for I could feel it. A vibration. Not of my knitted suit; a
vibration within me; within the very marrow of my bones.
My gaze was fixed upon the table across the room. Its outlines were
very sharp and clear, unnaturally so, with that sharpness of detail
which sometimes comes to the vision of one who is ill. Now they
began to blur—an unsteadiness as though I were looking through
waves of heat. Had the change started? I raised my hand, examined
it. No change, save that the receding blood had made it a little pale.
The nausea was now leaving me. A sense of relief, of triumph that I
was not ill, possessed me. With every alert faculty I determined to
remark my sensations.
The vibration within me grew stronger, though to my ears it was
unaltered. And then, abruptly the change began. My whole being
was quivering. Not my muscles, my flesh, my nerves, but the very
matter which composed them suddenly made sensible to my
consciousness. The essence of me, trembling, quivering, vibrating—
a tiny force, rapid beyond conception. It swept me with a tingling;
grew stronger, possessed me until for a moment nothing of my
consciousness remained but the knowledge of it.
Frightening, horrible. But the horror passed. Again my brain and
vision cleared. My whole being was humming; and then I realized
that I could no longer hear the hum, merely felt it. The knowledge of
sound, not the sound itself. And an exhilaration was coming to me. A
sense of lightness. My body growing lighter, less ponderable. But it
was far more than that. An exhilaration of spirit, as though from me
shackles of which I was newly conscious, were melting away. A
lightness of being. A freedom.... A new sense of freedom, frightening
with the vague wild triumph it brought.... Frightening too, for in the
background of my mind was the realization that all my physical
perceptions were dulling. My elbow was resting sharp against the
rough mattress. I dragged my arm a trifle; and dull, far away as
though detached from me, I could faintly feel it. I moved my leg. It
was not numb. The reverse, it was thrilling in its every fibre. It
moved, but I could only feel it move as in a dream. I even wondered
if I felt it move at all. Was it not, perhaps, only my knowledge that it
moved?
Abruptly I became aware that the table across the room had
changed. My mental faculties, with all this morbid change of the
physical taking place about them, were still alert. I had vaguely
expected the table, the room, the visible, material objects of the
realm I was leaving, to remain unaltered of aspect. But they did not.
The table had lost its color; a monochrome of greyness possessed it.
The table, the chairs, the whole room, had turned flat and grey. Flat
of tone; and flat of dimensions as well. The flat printed picture of a
room.
But in a moment even that had changed. The grey outlines of the
table were dim and blurred; the grey substance of it, no longer dull
and opaque, seemed growing luminous. Faintly phosphorescent.
Translucent, then transparent. Through the table leg, through the
wavering grey image of the room-wall, I saw opening up to me the
vast darkness of an abyss of distance. A phantom room in which I
lay. The shadow of a room hovering in empty space.
There was no horror within me now. That thrilling sense of lightness,
that vague unreasoning triumph of loosened shackles had no
thought of horror; and to me came a faint contempt for this phantom
room, these imponderable shadows which once had been solid
chairs and walls.
Then I heard Will's voice. "The battery! Turn off your current, Rob!"
Heard his voice? I believe I barely heard it—physically a thin wraith
of human voice striking my ear-drums. Yet, mingled with that
realization, was the sense that he was speaking quite normally. With
my mind's ear, the memory of his normal voice made me hear his
hurried, anxious admonition. "Turn off your battery. Rob! Rob!"
My battery. Of course, the moment had arrived when I must turn it
off. I glanced down at it. A shadowy, unreal, phantom battery lying
beside me; my grey hand resting upon it seemed to my vision far
more ponderable. And then I received my first real perception as to
the nature of this change. My fingers groped for the switch, found it.
But this shadow battery, of which even then I was dimly
contemptuous, was solid beyond all solidity of which I had ever
formed conception. My fingers fumbling with it—dulled as were my
physical sensations, I could feel those fingers groping as though the
adamant steel of that switch were penetrating them. A feeling
indescribable—uncanny, morbidly horrible, though the incident was
so brief the horror scarce had time to reach my confused
consciousness. My fingers, not the battery, were shadow—half-
ponderable fingers, feeling their way within the solid steel of that tiny
switch. For a terrifying instant I thought I could not move it. Then—it
moved; the current was off. I sank back, exhausted of spirit with the
effort. But at once Will's voice aroused me.
"Disconnect the wires. Can you do it, Rob? Quickly—or it will be too
late."
I fumbled for the wires; cast them off—gigantic cables they might
have been to the futile wraiths of my fingers. Will helped me, I think;
and at last I was free, lying back upon the mattress. Dimly I could
feel it beneath me, my thrilling, vibrating body resting upon it as
though I were a feather newly drifted down.
Moments passed; I do not know how long, I could not have told for
my thoughts were winging away unfettered, untrammelled as in a
dream.... A dream ... the past, the present—all of it savoured of a
vaguely pleasant unreality.
And presently I realized that I was moving; my body—could I indeed
call this vanished consciousness of the physical, a body?—my being
was floating, drifting gently downward, I could no longer feel the
mattress; I saw it—a blurred, grey, transparent shadow, coming
upward. Beside me, within me; then over me as I sank through it a
foot or two and came to rest.
Beneath me now, there was a dull sensation. I could feel myself lying
upon something apparently solid. Feel it? The feeling was barely
physical; rather was it a mere knowledge that I was lying there.
I tried to keep my scattering thoughts together. It was an effort to
hold them—an effort to think coherently; an effort to cling to anything
—even mental—of reality. I told myself that the change must be
nearly complete. I was the spectre; this phantom mattress, this
wraith of a room—those ghost-like chairs and table floating in space
above me—that was my own real world, lost and gone.
A silence had fallen. The hum within me no longer sounded. It was a
shock to see that little phantom clock; the movement of its pendulum
was visible, but its ticking heart gave no sound. A preternatural
silence hung like a grey shroud over a universe of shadows. Then I
heard Will's soundless voice—heard it clearly now with the
knowledge that it was wholly mental, a transference of thought which
only my imagination and memory endowed with a familiar physical
timbre.
"Rob. Come back to us! Hold your thoughts. Stay here with us."
And Bee's imploring voice, "We are here, Rob. All here together. Sit
up—look at us—speak to us."
Was I indeed, nothing now but a mind? Were my thoughts all that
remained of me? I fought for reality; for stability; fought for anything
real that I could clutch, to which desperately I might cling. Where
were Will and Bee? Somewhere here in the shadows. An abyss of
shadows everywhere. I thought I could see a thousand miles into
that pregnant darkness. I could wander in it at will; my thoughts
could wander everywhere.
But I must have conquered, for I found myself sitting up, with Bee
and Will beside me.

"There, that's better." I felt the relief in Will's tone. "Hold yourself firm
—you'll be used to it in a moment. It's strange, isn't it?"
Strange; scarce have I words—and even those I choose are almost
futile—to picture what I saw and felt. The world I had left lay all about
me—dim, transparent shadows of familiar things. The room of Will's
house—we were sitting just below the level of its floor. Around the
room—above it, to one side of it—the phantom house itself was
visible. Beyond the house, the gardens, the sombre ghosts of trees
standing about—a shadowy semblance of the winding village street
—other houses—a hill in the distance—
Mingled with all these shadows—the reality I had left—was the
reality in which now I existed. The Borderland, we had been calling
it. A vast realm of luminous darkness. A rolling slope upon which we
were sitting—a slope, something newly tangible at least, which I
could vaguely see and vaguely feel beneath me. A realm of pregnant
darkness, filled with the shadows of the world I had left; and filled
also with things as yet unseen—things as yet unthought.... The
realm of unthought things....
Will's voice seemed saying, "So strange—but you'll be used to it
presently."
I turned to regard him and Bee—these spectres like myself, sitting
beside me. What did I see? What was their aspect to this new mind's
eye which was mine? I cannot say. I think now that my intelligence
saw the intelligence which was theirs, and clothed it out of habit with
a semblance of substance for a body—familiar of outline and form
since there was no other aspect I could conceive. I saw—or thought I
saw, which perhaps is quite the same—luminous grey ghosts of my
companions as last I had seen them. Of themselves they appeared
not transparent. Through them the spectral walls of the room were
not visible; of everything around me, the bodies of my friends
seemed the most real.
Will was smiling at me reassuringly. Bee's gaze was affectionate.
Their voices, save that I knew I heard no sound, seemed not
abnormal. I spoke. It was like thinking words with moving lips. But
they heard me; not to read my lips, but to hear my thoughts. Heard
with a result quite normal, for they nodded and smiled and answered
me.

Then Will touched me; experimentally with a smile, he laid his hand
upon my arm. It was not unreal, save that only dimly, as though my
senses were dulled, could I feel him. Yet there was a weight to his
grip. His tenuous ghostly fingers (as I would have counted them in
my former state) were not ghostly of grip to me now. His fingers, my
arm, were identical of substance. His fingers could not occupy the
space with me; they were ponderable, real, with a dulled reality
which gave me at last something to cling to; brought my scattering
thoughts together. I was here—Robert Manse; alive—living,
breathing—sitting beside my friends. From that moment a measure
of the strangeness left me and took to itself the externals only. I was
real; Bee and Will were real; it was only the things around us which
were strange. The body which momentarily I seemed to have lost,
was restored to me. A sense of the physical; dulled of perception,
but still a body to house my mind. To house it—yet not to hold it
firmly. A body which now was not a prison; shackles fallen away. Yet
there was a danger to that. Already I had tasted of it—for the mind,
too free, is difficult to control.
I was saying, "I'm—all right.... I was dreaming—I got confused."
Bee said whimsically, "We're here. Will, there is so much I want to
ask you—"
"Not now, Bee." His voice was full of its old decisiveness. "We must
start. Keep together—you understand now, Rob, what I meant. Keep
together—keep thinking, firmly, what you are doing. And do—what I
do. We must start."
He drew himself erect. As though I were dreaming—or thinking of
the act—I felt myself standing erect. Then walking—vaguely I could
feel the substance of the slope beneath my feet—walking with a
lightness, a lack of effort weird but pleasant. And I clung physically to
Will, and saw Bee on his other side clinging to him also—as though
a breath of wind might blow us all away.
The thought was whimsical. There could be no wind. Wind was
moving air. I had the sense that I was still breathing, of course. But
how could there be air? Air itself was infinitely more solid than these,
our bodies. Yet I was breathing something. Call it air. The word of
itself means nothing—and there are no words with which to clothe
the realities of any unthought realm....
We were walking through the phantom room which had been the
reality of Will's home—through its wall—out through its garden. Our
slope was rolling, uneven. The shadowy ground of the garden was
above us, then below us; then, for a moment, we seemed standing
exactly on its level. I remembered. This was the place Will had
mentioned to which we could safely return.
We spoke seldom; Will did not seem to care to talk. I realized he
knew where he was going—had some definite purpose in his mind.
Alert now with every mental faculty, I wondered what it was, yet
would not question him.
We stalked onward. The shadowy village lay about us, above us
now. Soundless, colorless phantoms, these streets, trees and
houses. I saw the railway station—the ghost of a train stood off there
and then moved forward soundlessly. I was touched with a faint
amusement to see it—a luminous ghost sliding along its narrow
enslaving rails. It could not go up or down, or sidewise. And it
seemed so imponderable I would fearlessly have walked into it.
This Borderland, full of these shadows of our other world, yet
seemed empty. Nothing of its own reality was visible. In every
direction I could look into seemingly infinite distance; and overhead
was a vast darkness—the emptiness of infinite space. Was nothing
here with us in this Borderland? Those other spectres—those beings
coming out from their world as we were coming in from ours?...
A thrill of quite normal excitement swept me at the thought. We had
come in to encounter those spectres. And now they would be
spectres no longer. Ponderable beings upon an equality with
ourselves; and we were here to thwart them of their purpose....
I heard Bee give a faint, alarmed cry. Ahead of us a shape had
appeared! It became visible and I felt that perhaps it had been hiding
behind some unseen obstacle. It stood, solid and grey, with the
shadow of a barn, a haystack above and behind it. Stood directly in
our path, as though waiting for us.
I pulled at Will, but he ignored me. Hastened his pace.
We stalked forward with that waiting thing standing immobile in our
path!
 CHAPTER VII
THE STRUGGLE AT THE BORDERLAND
The thing stood waiting as Will drew us toward it. Fear swept over
me. Yet the very sense of fear brought with it a reassurance, for it
was the physical I feared; the vanished sense of my body was not
entirely gone, for now I was fearing its welfare.
My voice protested, "Will. Wait. That thing there—"
"It is friendly, Rob."
The fear died. I remembered what now seemed obvious; Will had
been leading us somewhere with a set purpose. To meet this friendly
thing, of course; this thing which doubtless he had met before. I
stared at it as we approached. A dim, opaque grey shape like
ourselves but it seemed formless, sexless; neither human nor
unhuman—a shape merely—a something poised there of which my
mind seemed able to form no conception. Then I heard Will say to
Bee:
"A girl, Bee—you understand—Rob, listen. We must cling to the
realities of our world. There are no other words—no other
conceptions—with which we can think these unthought things. This
is a girl——"
I thought it was a girl; and at once I fancied that I could distinguish
her. Standing there with a phantom barn and haystack of our own
world above and behind her. A girl like Bee. I could see the grey-
formed outlines of her; vaguely flowing draperies; long hair; a face of
human beauty with a queer wistful look—she was smiling at Will—a
friendly smile—.
All this I thought I saw; and in the thinking, brought it to reality. Into
my mind then flashed a clearer understanding. This Borderland—
and the other inner realm lying beyond it which soon we were to
enter—could no more be compared to the world we had left than an
apple can be added to an orange. The very essence of every
thought we now were thinking was different—incomparable. Yet
within our minds was some lingering, unchangeable quality—call it
Ego; so that these new things must be clothed in the fashion of the
old.
My words grow futile? I can only say then that this first encountered
being seemed like a girl, wistful of face; grey, colorless of aspect; yet
solid—as solid as ourselves which every moment was seeming a
more normal solidity.
Will touched her. "Rob—Bee—this is Ala—she has been waiting for
us."
Her voice said, "I am Ala who will do what I can to help you."
The tone seemed soft, liquid, musical and wholly feminine.
Soundless words but clearly intoned as though I had heard them
with a physical ear.
Bee said, "Why, she speaks English."
It struck a note of whimsicality; the thought momentarily relieved the
tension under which I was laboring. And so I think it was with the
others; they were smiling; but Will's smile faded as he turned to us.
"You must keep on thinking things like that. Cling always to
normality." His voice was earnest. "You also, Ala—English you see,
is our language."
"But you are speaking my language," she said gravely.
"Of course," he agreed hurriedly. "Do not doubt it. All of you—I think I
understand best of us all. We must strive for our accustomed
normality. Remember—the mind now is nearly everything."
"I am—not really confused," I said.
It relieved him; he spoke more quietly. "This girl, Ala, came from her
own realm—wandered out here to see and feel for herself what
madness was possessing her people."
"It is strange," Ala said abruptly. "I am frightened—" Sudden terror
marked her features. I was standing nearest to her and her hand
gripped me. Again I felt that solidity. Normality. I was real; I laughed
contemptuously at all these shadows. The girl added anxiously:
"Cannot we go back? Now—where all is real—not like this. I—
cannot stay here much longer."
"We will go," said Will. "Bee—and you Rob—listen carefully. From
now on it is a question of the power of our minds—our will-power. If
you wander—weaken for a moment—we are lost. Keep thinking, I
am here with my friends. We are going together—going into the
other realm." He swung to the girl. "You, Ala, for you it is easier. But
yield yourself slowly. If you withdraw resistance you will rush beyond
us. You understand? Above everything else we must keep together."
She nodded.
We clung to each other. Ala began moving forward, drawing us
onward up that empty Borderland slope which now was steeply
inclined. We passed through the haystack—a mere shadow; passed
upward through a corner of the barn roof.
Beneath us now spread the phantom world we had left. But as my
thoughts dwelt on what we were going to do, the shadows of our
earthly realm seemed fading; growing dimmer, blurring as though
about to vanish. I watched them fearfully; when they were gone I
would be in darkness—pregnant darkness thronged with things
unseeable. I thought vehemently.
"We must keep together—we are going on into that other realm, Will
says we are—Will says we must keep together."
But my thought strayed. I remembered Will's house; the room we
had left—the little clock—Why, I fancied I almost saw it. Was I there,
back in that room?—Where was Bee?—Bee?—
I must have called her name in my thoughts, and at once she
answered.
"Here Rob. Right here." And I felt the pressure of her hand.
A struggle of the mind. I knew then that every quality of mind
inherent to me was winging backward: tugging, pulling, but I fought
against it. And I became aware too of a different struggle within me. I
had sensed it for some time past but now it sprang into keen
intensity. A struggle of the physical. A vague racking pain possessed
me. Dull, detached seemingly from my consciousness, yet I knew it
was the pain of my body. It grew sharper. Not intolerable; but
frightening with a sense of horror. It permeated my every fiber;
tingling with infinitely tiny needles; and tugging, physically as my
mind was tugging, to resume its original state. Like a chip in an
undertow, I was being drawn backward....
"Now." I felt Will's tense voice. And Ala's soft words.
"We—are—passed. Hold me—now."
Someone was clutching my arm. I seemed floating, storm-tossed—a
feather blown in a wind I could not feel. But abruptly the struggle
ceased; vaguely I was conscious that my feet were standing upon
something solid—Will and Bee were here—Ala was here—I was a
reality once more, and there were rational thoughts to think and real
things to see.
 CHAPTER VIII
THE REALM OF NEW DIMENSIONS
The shadows of our world were vanished. The Borderland, with its
darkness, its drab empty slope, was gone. A new world lay spread
about me; new companions. And I was conscious of a new entity—a
new Robert Manse, who was myself.
I remember now that my first thought was surprise that I should be
able to visualize things of strangeness. But now I know that once
over the Borderland my mind itself had changed, yet retaining of its
old self just enough, so that I might be conscious of the strangeness.
In a grey half-light of luminosity seemingly inherent to everything, I
found myself standing upon a hillside, gazing down an empty slope
of greyness. Was it land? I can only say that it seemed solid beneath
me; solid, quivering with a tiny tremble; vibrating, and within itself
vaguely luminous.
Overhead was darkness. Yet hardly that, for the same luminosity
was there; and I felt that I was gazing, not through emptiness but
rather through some tenuous fluid illimitable to my vision, with things
there to see, as yet—for me—unseeable.
The slope before me was empty. But shapes were materializing; it
was as though I had come out of the darkness, with eyes not yet
accustomed to the light. I fancied I saw water in the distance. A white
lake; but when I stared, it seemed more like a grey rolling cloud. Was
it liquid?...
The mind receives a multitude of impressions in an instant. I was
conscious of myself. My body was an entity wholly vague—yet there
seemed a tingling in it; a weight to it, for I was standing upright. Will
and Bee—and the girl Ala—were beside me. I saw them now in their
old familiar form, but with a queer sense of flatness to them. Flat;
unnatural of outline; not grotesque, merely strange, unreal. Almost
indescribable; and though distinctly it was not a two-dimensional
aspect, I think that flatness best describes it. A something about
them which was lacking; or perhaps a something added—I do not
know.
And inherent to this whole realm as soon I was to see it, was this
same queer flatness. Things without depth; yet to view them
sidewise, the depth was there, with the flatness still persisting.
And I saw color; nameless colors which I might call blue, or red, or
green and the words would have no meaning. Men, women—
houses, or at least habitations; the words are all I can command, but
they are grotesquely meaningless. It was all so incomparably
strange; and paradoxically, the strangest of it all was the fashion in
which my mind began to accept it. I could think of Ala as nothing but
a girl. A frightened, likable girl—with thoughts and feelings similar to
my own. This realm was real—a new country; with friends, enemies
—a struggle going on within it in which I must play a part. The whole
seen and thought of in terms of my own world. And I realized that I—
to these others of this other realm—must have seemed a stranger,
but not so very strange. Thought of by them in their own terms—
each of us upon a common ground, an equality of material state, to
visualize the other in terms of ourselves.
 CHAPTER IX
THE ATTACK ON THE MEETING HOUSE
Ala was saying, "At last—it is so good to be back." For her the
struggle was wholly past; she was smiling, relieved, and upon her
face there was solicitude for us. "You are not injured? At rest—now?"
"Yes," said Will. "It is over." His hand touched Bee affectionately.
"The strangeness will soon be gone, I think. You all right, Rob?"
"Yes," I said. In truth, every moment a rationality of being was
coming to me. And curiosity, of itself evidence of normality, made me
ask, "Where are we going? What are we going to do?"
"Going with Ala," said Will briefly. "Her people are friendly to us—
deploring the threatened invasion of our world."
I realized that he and Ala at their first meeting must have exchanged
knowledge, and planned what we now were to do.
Bee asked, "Are we going far? Will it take long?"
Ala seemed puzzled. "Far"—"long." The words involved Space and
Time. I saw that at first they had no meaning to her.
"We are going there," she answered. Her gesture was vaguely
downward ahead of us. "Come," she added.
We started. My impression now is that we were walking. I could feel
a part of my body in movement, quite as though of my volition I were
moving my legs. A sense of lightness again possessed me; a lack of
stability. But I could feel solidity beneath me, and I was moving upon
it.
We walked then, down the hill. There was vegetation; things, let me
say, seemed rooted within the ground. But they bent from our
advance as though with a knowledge and a fear that we might tread
upon them.