Women's rights discourses in Iran from the Constitution to the Islamic Revolution

An important gift of Iranians facing the West was the challenge between tradition and modernity. The field of women's issues was also caught up in this challenge. This article tries to answer the questions of when the thought of the women's rights movement entered the intellectual space of the Iranian society and in the form of what discourses it spread and how the role of intellectuals in this direction is done with a sociological-historical approach and through documentary and library methods. What paths have they taken in this direction and what has been the reason for their delay in addressing the issue of women? The findings indicate that the events before and after the Constitutional Revolution provided the ground for some Iranian women to become acquainted with the women's movement in the West. In the meantime, a quasi-movement structure was formed in Iran that emphasized the better life of women and the realization of women's rights. But with the advent of the Pahlavi period, the movement took the form of a state and became a calm wave. With the victory of the Islamic Revolution, after the constitutional discourse and the Pahlavi discourse, a third discourse of the women's rights movement was formed. This discourse is composed of different and sometimes contradictory spectrums and somehow seeks to respond to the challenges of tradition and modernity.