Engaging Iran's silent majority.

• Author: Byers, Bruce

Editor's Note: A retired Foreign Service Officer with experience in pre-revolutionary Iran looks at the role of women in today's Iran, especially in light of the recent anti-government protests. What may that mean for the future of Iran and any U.S. engagement with that country?--Ed.

In his June 4 Cairo speech President Obama addressed the issue of freedom and equality of women and girls and stated: "I am convinced that our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons. Our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity--men and women--to reach their full potential. I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men in order to be equal, and I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice. And that is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls, and to help young women pursue employment through micro-financing that helps people live their dreams."

Following the President's Cairo speech and in the weeks after the June 12 presidential election in Iran, the first major anti-government protests since the 1979 revolution revealed cracks among Iran's power elites and showed that there are at least two poles in the domestic Iranian debate over the definitions, interpretations and uses of cultural and political symbols in Iranian society. The cracks have expanded into a major schism among revolution loyalists and it appears as though the revolution is consuming many of its own. Recent crackdowns on protesters have only hardened resistance and revealed weaknesses among hard-line supporters of President Ahmadinejad.

Taking a leaf from the American cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz ("Religion as a Cultural System" in Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion), we need to examine more closely the "historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols ... by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life." The post-election protests in Iran have demonstrated that significant segments of younger, educated Iranians have challenged the conventional wisdom and the political and cultural symbols by which the revolutionary elites have held sway over the populace and territory of Iran for the past three decades. Iranian women have been among the most motivated groups of protesters and one of them--Neda Soltani--was shot and killed on the street while trying to express herself. Her killing violated ancient and deeply rooted social taboos against harming women and girls. As a symbol of peaceful protest she is important, and her death sent shock waves through Iranian society and around the world.

The killing revealed the still deep-seated misogyny within certain circles of the dominant political elites in Iran. If innocent women can be gunned down on a public street, everyone is subject to arbitrary violence. In this regard, the current regime under Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad is no different in its application of force than was that of the Shah. In fact, it is more brutal because it targets women in many ways that the Shah's police did not. For example, under the Shah there were no "morality police" forcing women to conform to dress codes and codes of public behavior.

The overwhelming use of force against...