Discourse Analysis of Gender Equality in the Sixth 5-years Plan for Economic, Cultural and Social Development of Islamic Republic of Iran

The planning system in Iran is affected by the governing political and social discourses, and what places such discourses should hold for subjects and categories are represented in the development plans. Among the very important subjects is the subject of women. The subject of women should be located in which field of discourses, takes different senses and identities which themselves are manifested in the planning system and, in turn, leads to the establishment of gender equality or continuation of gender inequality. The present paper deals with the study of the current conflicts in Iranian society on semantic hegemony in the field of women discourse evolution, and representation of the debate on gender equality in the Sixth Plan of Development by Laclau and Mouffe’s method of discourse analysis. Findings, regarding the discourse evolution, show that the discourses of equality, which as stated by Fairclough are the result of discourse dialectic of the reformists and the fundamentalists, recovers the void signifiers in the field of discoursiveness and gives them new meaning. Accordingly, it articulates the signs of “women occupation”, “equal chances”, “removing the legal obstacles”, “familyism”, “paying no attention to gender”, and “welfare and insurance of women” in linkage with the central signifier of “equality of man and woman”. Also the discourse analysis of gender equality in the Sixth Plan of Development indicates that the governing discourse on the Sixth Plan has been formed by the pivotal sign under the title “gender equality” and with the signified of “occupational chances”, “health and hygiene”, “women literacy”, “reform of legal system” and “participation in decision-making and decision-taking”. Such semantic signs contain, respectively, the economic equality, hygiene equality, legal equality, and political equality. Although, such signifiers in the texts of the plan fail to totally cover the meanings implied in the concepts, we could be hopeful that by executing the Sixth Plan of Development, the required grounds for institutionalizing the civil demands for the object of establishing the gender equality in society shall be provided, hence the role of women in the development of our country becomes more highlighted.