The Conflict of Female Identity in the Discourses of the Islamic Revolution and Religious Modernism: An Issue or a Social Movement?

By the mid second decade of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the emergence of a part of "the new religious Thinking" created a new feminine identity against the feminine identity of the revolutionary discourse. After three decades of efforts by this movement to articulate a new feminine identity, demands were raised by women leading to challenges against the feminine identity of the revolutionary discourse. Considering such developments, can the situation of Iranian women and their new demands turn to a social movement?

First, this article exploits the discourse analysis of Laclau and Mouffe to analyze the conflict between feminine identity of the Islamic Revolution and that of the new religious thinking. Second, In the light of discourse analysis, an attempt will be made to demonstrate that "temporality" has been a decisive element in the emergence of new discourses, and it is in and through such a consideration that new identities question de-constructively the foundation of any ruling discourse welcoming new aspects of a new forming discourse step by step.

Based upon discursive temporality, this article evaluates the conflict between the feminine identity of the discourses of the Islamic Revolution and that of new religious thinking on the direction to become a social movement and suggests that the guardians of the revolutionary discourse recognize the developments of such new religious innovations in the domain of feminine identity as a rival discourse. By the recognition of this rival feminine identity, they will take to consideration the moment of transformism as a response to the new changing conditions: social movement. As it follows, transformism does not mean a thorough admission   to a rival discourse, but it adheres to a wise calling of alternative religious solutions and strategies. It is wise because discourse analysis as an analytical strategy signifies the historicity and temporality of discourses. Transformism is a discursive response to the historicity and temporality of any dominant discourse, including the discourse of the feminine identity of the Islamic Revolution, where the dominant discourse conforms to new requirements and realities.