Blog Post #3 Ziba Mir-Hosseini

In "Agreeing to Differ: Final Meeting With Payam-e Zan", Ziba Mir-Hosseini documents her last meeting at the Payam-e Zan clerics who publish articles in a women's magazine in the Middle East. She interviews men of the Islamic clergy in order to discuss "assumptions on which feqh Rulings on marriage and divorce are constructed" (171). However, as the interviews occur the author finds their content to be very different than she anticipated. While she does facilitate discussion over the inequality of the rights of women under feqh, those she interviews continuously avoid her questions or somewhat answer them. Mir-Hosseini touches upon a plethora of inequalities stemming from women being viewed as not equal to men under feqh, such as the tradition of women being forced to give up blood money, not being able to lead or be a part of Tehad, not having societal support in providing for their households, and views around men's right to polygamy. This discussion brings to light that although women are not defined as defective under the feqh, there are still many restrictions placed upon their identities due to their gender (174). Furthermore, the piece goes on to discuss whether a woman's lower value in society stems from her gender or if it stems from another part of society. When Mir-Hosseini questions whether the law stipulates "woman's economic value and contribution to the society is half man's", Mortazavi answers by saying that men have more roles and duties assigned to them in society, thus justifying the gender inequality laws with regard to blood money (180). After this discussion ends, there isn't much change in views by anyone as all parties have already somewhat made up their minds.

I enjoyed this article as I learned a lot about feqh and how women's roles in society as somewhat dictated in Iran. I admire Mir-Hosseini's courage in discussing these matters with these clerics as she is attempting to bring to light many issues women in Iran face today. I think that people need to question how social hierarchies work and not just stay within the roles they have been placed in. I found the discussion around polygamy particularly interesting, especially when the second person being interviewed Sa'idi stepping in to clarify what Mir-Hosseini meant by saying that her perspective as a woman differed from Mortazavi's due to him being a man, in that it had nothing to do with feqh, but rather their personal feelings on the matter. I was surprised by the complexity of Sa'idi's answer to her question as I can somewhat understand his perspective on the matter with regard to polygamy. However, I still disagree with polygamy being legal for men only. Under Sa'idi's answer, women should also be allowed to have multiple wives as they also may have a change of heart or desire.