Introduction
Since the Pahlavi era, the state assumed an interventionist role in the women’s movement, which had begun its organized activities during the Constitutional Revolution. Changes in the status of women during the reign of the first Pahlavi took place in three domains: reforms in divorce and marriage laws, the expansion of education, and the unveiling (abolition of veiling). Nevertheless, the first Pahlavi state did not take steps toward granting women broader political and social rights. During the second Pahlavi period, in the time span between 1941 and 1953 (1320–1332), which in one sense can be regarded as a period of governmental instability, no effective measures were undertaken to change the status of women. In the period between 1953 and 1961 (1332–1340), with the establishment of the two political parties, the Melliun and Mardom, the necessity of addressing women’s social and political rights was raised; however, no serious action was taken regarding the granting of political rights.
In 1962 (1341), with the rise to power of the government of Asadollah Alam and the introduction of the six principles of the White Revolution—one of which was the reform of the electoral law and the granting of suffrage to women—the state once again assumed responsibility for changing the social status of women. The state and the royal court claimed that they represented the women’s movement and were its voice. This revolution sought to define a new identity for women so as to be able to mobilize them, as half of the society’s social force, in alignment with its goals. What is of importance for the present study is the manner in which women are represented in the discourse of the White Revolution.
Research Objective
The objective of this study is to examine the manner of women’s representation and their superior and subaltern positions in the discourse of the White Revolution. The White Revolution claims to have rescued women from their subaltern condition. The present study seeks, through an analysis of the modes of women’s representation, to evaluate this claim by exploring how the subaltern and superior positions of women are constructed within the discourse of the White Revolution. For this purpose, Spivak’s theoretical logic in her well-known essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” has been adopted as the basis of this evaluation. Accordingly, this study aims, within the framework of subaltern studies, to address the following questions: How are women represented in the discourse of the White Revolution? How are their superior and subaltern positions depicted? And has this discourse altered the power relations concerning women, or not?
Research Method
In this study, Norman Fairclough’s method of Critical Discourse Analysis has been employed to understand the representation of the subaltern woman in the discourse of the White Revolution and its relation to power relations and domination. The two books White Revolution and Towards a Great Civilization, as the manifestos of the White Revolution, constitute the basis for textual analysis. The analysis has been conducted at three levels:
Textual practice: At this level, the text is analyzed in terms of its linguistic and formal features, and an attempt is made to derive its experiential, relational, and expressive values so as to provide clues for the researcher leading to the level of interpretation.
Discursive practice: At this level, attention is given to the formal properties of the text to extract its underlying essence, that is, the dominant discourse of the text.
Social practice: At this level, the relation between discourse and social structure is examined, and it is shown whether the discourse has transformed the social order and power relations or has contributed to their reproduction and stabilization.
Research Data
The research data, in line with the three levels of Critical Discourse Analysis, are presented in three parts:
Textual Practice: In this section, the linguistic features of the text are examined in relation to the three central research questions: the representation of women, and the construction of subaltern and dominant positions. Regarding the representation of women, it was shown that the text producer, in order to resolve the ideological knot of religious and cultural illegitimacy, makes women visible in two historical periods, namely Ancient Iran and Islam. In these two periods, women are represented as having social rights and, in some areas, equality with men, so that the rights granted to women in the White Revolution could be endowed with cultural and religious legitimacy. Concerning the representation of subaltern and dominant positions, it was shown that the text producer situates women’s subalternity in the post-Islamic period and identifies four forms of subalternity—cultural, social, political, and economic—designating this condition as “seclusion” and “social stigma.” In the discourse of the White Revolution, the horizon of dominance envisioned for women is their reaching the level of “progressive” Western women, meaning access to political freedom, social participation, economic activity, and civil rights equal to men. It must be noted that the text producer constructs women’s subaltern and dominant positions through continuous comparison with the transcendent “Other” of the White Revolution discourse—namely, the West—and this comparison has shaped the way women are represented.
Discursive Practice: At this level, based on the linguistic features of the text, it was demonstrated which discourses the text producer summons and articulates together in order to resolve the ideological knot of religious and cultural illegitimacy. In the discourse of the White Revolution, three discourses—namely Iranian nationalism, Islamism, and modernism—are articulated together in such a way that the outcome of their recombination can be labeled as a new discourse, namely identity-oriented modernism. Since the text producer rearticulates different discourses, it can be argued that the discourse of identity-oriented modernism has, to some extent, altered the previous discursive order regarding women.
Social Practice: At this level, the relation between discourse, social order, and power relations is examined, and it is shown that the discourse of identity-oriented modernism has influenced women’s social status in two ways:Relative de-subalternization and Identity-based subalternization.
Conclusion
This study demonstrated that the subaltern woman in the discourse of the White Revolution is represented simultaneously as both subject and object: as an object in the post-Islamic history, manifested through female seclusion and deprivation of social rights, and as a subject in Ancient Iran, the Islamic period, and the modern era. The Shah, as the author of the manifesto of the Revolution, seeks, by making visible the subjectivity of women in the history of Ancient Iran and Islam and assimilating it with the status of women in the modern period, to construct an ideology that, by blending tradition and modernity, creates a new identity for women endowed with religious and cultural legitimacy. In this regard, he attempts to articulate three discourses—Iranian nationalism, Islamism, and modernism—into a new discourse that legitimizes the horizon of women’s dominance in the present moment, namely reaching the level of progressive Western women.
This discourse, claiming to represent women, establishes a dual relationship with power relations: on the one hand, the discourse of identity-oriented modernism, by linking with the state’s ideological and executive apparatuses, was able in the years following the White Revolution to produce relative social mobility for women through changes in literacy rates, employment, political participation, and family law reforms. On the other hand, through identity-based subalternization, it reproduces pre-existing power relations within the patriarchal society. In this instance, within the epistemé of modernism, through abnormal othering, the subaltern condition of women is concealed under the label of social stigma, and consequently, as Spivak puts it, women’s voices are silenced. From this perspective, despite the visibility of women within the discourse of identity-oriented modernism, the mode of their representation can be termed silent visibilization.