Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Transliteration and References
- Introduction
- PART I WOMEN IN EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY IRAN
- PART II WOMEN IN THE KINGDOM OF THE PEACOCK THRONE
- 2 The Pahlavi Dynasty as a Centralizing Patriarchy
- 3 Economic Development and the Gender Division of Labor
- 4 The State and Gender: Repression, Reform, and Family Legislation
- 5 Women and the State
- PART III WOMEN IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
- Conclusion
- Glossary
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
2 - The Pahlavi Dynasty as a Centralizing Patriarchy
from PART II - WOMEN IN THE KINGDOM OF THE PEACOCK THRONE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Transliteration and References
- Introduction
- PART I WOMEN IN EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY IRAN
- PART II WOMEN IN THE KINGDOM OF THE PEACOCK THRONE
- 2 The Pahlavi Dynasty as a Centralizing Patriarchy
- 3 Economic Development and the Gender Division of Labor
- 4 The State and Gender: Repression, Reform, and Family Legislation
- 5 Women and the State
- PART III WOMEN IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
- Conclusion
- Glossary
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
He “was the very embodiment of a traditional masculine character.” So Ashraf Pahlavi remembered her father Reza Shah, founder of the Pahlavi dynasty. “Although I feared my father, I shared some of his qualities: his stubbornness, his fierce pride, and his iron will,” wrote his powerful daughter, the twin sister of Mohammad Reza Shah, the second and the last Pahlavi ruler of Iran.
Reza Shah left behind no autobiographies, but as Amin Banani notes, he “had to perfection the politician's talent for opportunism.” While still uncertain in his power, for example, “he knew how to play upon the religious emotions of the people.” He was “antagonistic toward the clergy,” although he was “basically apathetic to religion.” There was also “a definite ideological motivation” in his political actions. Dedicated to nationalism and statism, he sought a rapid adoption of “the material advances of the West [by] a breakdown of the traditional power of religion and a growing tendency toward secularism.” He built a modernizing, Westernizing, and centralizing state in Iran, a state that was based on a strong army and repression, not the consensus of the governed.
Reza Shah introduced policies that altered the lives of Iranian women. For the first time, some women entered into the modern sectors of the economy, public and non-sex segregated schools were established, family laws were modified, and unveiling was enforced forcibly in 1936.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Women and Politics in IranVeiling, Unveiling, and Reveiling, pp. 61 - 98Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007