Women Employment Discourses (A Comparative Study of Imam Khomeini’s Views and other Prevalent Discourses)

Discourses on employment of women entail certain methods that individuals and groups stick to when talking about the need or no need, musts and must-nots about employing women in the society. This paper has picked up the theory and method of discourse analysis based on Laclau and Mouffe theory to develop a comparative study between Imam Khomeini’s views and other common discourses concerning employment of women to extract similarities and distinctions. Our statistical population is historical texts on purposely selected intellectual schools. Findings indicate that pro-women employment discourses chiefly place emphasis on self-sufficiency of women, whereas the opposing discourses invoke natural differences and argue that employment of women disrupts family order. In the midst of these two discourses, Imam Khomeini’s discourse is based on Islamic teachings, the hegemony of which in the area of employment of women, has had immense consequences in safe and calm entry of women into employment centers and at the same time, settling women’s multi-faceted roles in family and career.