This book offers a new methodological and theoretical approach to the highly sensitive and complicated issue of violence against women in contemporary Iran. Challenging the widespread notion that secularisation and modernisation are the keys to emancipating women, the author instead posits that domestic violence is deeply rooted in society and situated in the fundament of current discourses.

Investigating how orthodox jurisprudence as mainstream discourse, together with social, legal and public norms, help to perpetuate the production and reproduction of physical, psychological, sexual and economical violence against women, the author presents and reflects upon narratives, experiences and the social realities accounting for domestic violence against women. Drawing on qualitative empirical research, she theorises that the notion of secularization and modernisation helping to overcome such violence is to some extent represented by Islamic feminism, secular feminism, and religious intellectualism, all of which are methodologically examined in the analysis.

Challenging conventional wisdom regarding women's place in Iran and in wider Islamic society, this book offers a new insight into violence against Muslim women and as such will be an important addition to the existing literature in the areas of gender studies, Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, and Iranian studies.

About the Author

Zahra Tizro is a Lecturer in psychology in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at York St. John University, UK. Her research interests span a broad range of topics including domestic violence, gender studies, health studies, critical social psychology, Middle Eastern and Iranian studies.

Reviews

"This volume is a path breaking work in dealing not only with silences concerning domestic violence in Iran where women are concerned, but also with men and the different ways that they approach this in Iran. In particular the interviews with men in the northern region, Tizro ventures into a difficult and unexplored terrain. The work is revealing and sheds light not only on the dilemmas faced by men and women in the specific case studies, but also those living in societies and within cultures that define sexual control as a male prerogative. In Iran as in the rest of the world these views are contextualised in judicial and legal as well as cultural contexts that both support and perpetuate violence. Though particularly important to those concerned with women in the Middle East an the Muslim world, the work also sheds light on the communality of experiences of both physical as well as psychological and cultural violence against women across the world and outlines the different ways that these have been contextualised in Islam and practised in Iran." - Haleh Afshar

"Dr. Tizro has written a very important and ground-breaking book on domestic violence in Iran: Domestic Violence in Iran: Women, Marriage and Islam. (Routledge.) As the first book about domestic violence in Iran, this study is of great significance."- Dr Mary Hegland, Santa Clara University

Book Information
ISBN 9781138789128
Author Zahra Tizro
Format Paperback
Page Count 268
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 408g