Gender Equality in Iranian History From Pre-Islamic Times to the Present By Minoo Derayeh (Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellon Press, 2006. 242 pages.)

Abstract

This ambitious undertaking, comprising 6 chapters, 16 tables, 4 appendixes,
and a glossary, is the culmination of a doctoral program at McGill University’s
Institute of Islamic Studies. A specialist in Islam, world religions, and
gender studies, Minoo Derayeh is now an assistant professor at York University
in Toronto.
Gender Equality in Iranian History seeks to uncover the social, political,
and economic status of women across the vast expanse of Iranian history.
In her “Foreword,” Ratna Gosh (McGill University) applauds the
author’s contribution for showing that the “concept of Islamic feminism is
founded on the idea of complementary rather than equal rights” and, equally
importantly, for laying bare “the root of cultural patriarchy” (p. ii). The very
idea of complementarity, as the book’s chapters reveal, has not always been
unproblematically present in Iran’s encounter with Islam ...