Democracy Courage Tribute Acceptance Speech on Behalf of the Iranian Women’s Movement

Democracy Courage Tribute Acceptance Speech on Behalf of the Iranian Women’s Movement

Author : Mahnaz Afkhami, World Movement for Democracy

I am proud and honored to accept this award on behalf of the Iranian Women’s Movement. It is a special honor to receive the award from the right honorable Kim Campbell whose life’s work and her personal conduct represent all that I and scores of others around the world aspire to. I am thankful to…

A Beaten Path

A Beaten Path

Author : Mahnaz Afkhami, The Berlin Journal (Number 18 Fall 2009)

At the time of the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, Iran was a society organized on precepts that for centuries has defined the subordinate position of women as the natural order of things. The nascent civil society faced the issue of women mostly as a problem between traditionalism and modernism. But as the moderns grew in…

VOA Roundtable: Discriminatory Laws against Women in Iran (in Persian)

Author : Voice of America (Persian)

Following a violent crackdown of women’s peaceful protests in Tehran, VOA Persian aired a program on discriminatory laws against women under the Islamic Republic regime, including a Q and A with callers from all over the world with Mahnaz Afkhami as its guest. Afkhami pointed out that Iranian women had never faced such violence or…

Searching for the Sources of the Self

Author : Mahnaz Afkhami, The Scholar and Feminist Online

In Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1989) Charles Taylor introduces the concept of identity as follows: “…the question is often spontaneously phrased by people in the form: Who am I? But this can’t necessarily be answered by giving name and genealogy. What does answer this question for us…

At the Crossroads of Tradition & Modernity: Personal Reflection

Author : Mahnaz Afkhami, The Johns Hopkins University Press

I have spent most of my adult life defending and promoting women’s human rights. I came to this field through English literature, largely innocent of theories of feminism. By the time I encountered these theories formally in the 1970s as secretary general of the Women’s Organization of Iran (WOI), I had already experienced their essence…