From Sexual Subject to the Revolutionary Subject Representation of Woman in Discourse of the Islamic Republic

The present study seeks to show how meaning boundaries and social structure of the revolutionary woman has been formed. This goal is fulfilled through focusing on power relations and resistance as seen in competing discourses of the political, social, and cultural conflicts during the last two decades before the Islamic revolution of 1979 took place. To this aim, this paper takes a glance at the discourses of the most significant political and cultural figures of that time, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Imam Khomeini, regarding the subject of woman. It also probes the formation process of traditional and modern discourses. Then, it looks at the changing of views toward 'woman as a sex or gender subject' in the light of linguistic capacity of important thinkers of Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Motahari, Dr. Shariati, and Imam Khomeini. Then the formation of the concept of 'woman as a human subject' is explained in the meaning networks of Islamic Revolution discourses. This paper draws on the theoretical and methodological foundation taken from the strategic integration of Laclau and Mouffe’s discursive theory and Wodak’s historical discursive theory.