Women’s Experiences of Public Spaces in Tehran, A Generational Perspective

Iranian women had a tumultuous presence in public spaces since the beginning of the century, when Reza Shah Pahlavi ordered women to unveil until the Islamic republic obliged them to veil again. It was only during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah, where women had some social freedoms and the choice of wearing or not the hijab in Public spaces.
Today despite 35 years of rigid application of the Islamic law through a permanent control of morality and social behaviors in public spaces, it seems that the process of islamization of the society was not enough successful. Today, children of the Revolution, those who have been born after Revolution, and grew up in a paradoxical society, between the perpetual process of Islamization and being exposed to the modernism, gradually have shaped new forms of rebellion and spaces of resistance, which were not expected under the Islamic Republic.
Young generations of women today are highly educated, but mostly jobless, they are connected to the world via the new technology, they are more aware of their rights in public and private spheres; they marry less, divorce more and stay single for longer time. Today there are many young women, who are living alone in Tehran, or cohabiting with their friends, out of the context of the traditional family, a new phenomenon which did not existed until recently in this scale. These young women experience public life and public spaces in a very new way.
This paper is based on (more than) 40 interviews with urban middle class women between 20 and 65 years old who are living alone in Tehran. I will examine how different generations of women experience their everyday life in different public spaces and in different moments of their lives? How they learned /managed / invented different strategies to stay or to (re)enter different public spaces despite multiple limitations imposed by the traditional society or the state and religious authorities.