When my virtue defends your borders: Political justification of nation and order through the rhetorical production of womanhood in the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran

SynopsisA qualitative content analysis of writings and speeches of Khomeini – the leader of Iran's Islamic revolution of 1979 – illustrates a symbolic disposition of gender within his political Islamist narratives. Westernizing agendas of the Pahlavi's state, and its symbolic use of unveiled women to model the modern nation, gave rise to an oppositional anti-imperial force that equally placed women at the center of its nation building project. As one of those oppositional forces, Khomeini positions gender within his nationalist, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist narratives and suggests that changes in traditional gender relations have originated from imperialist schemes and are threatening to the order of society. According to these narratives, femininity and gender “ideals” such as chastity and devotional motherhood are pivotal to the protection of the nation, its independence and its future. This study also provides an example of how, in the times of rapid social change, moral panics around changes in traditional gender relations are created to justify political organization and mobilization.