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Abstract

Critical theories in the field of security have revealed the incompatibility of government-based approaches to security studies and the nature of domination and repression structures in society. The Copenhagen and Welsh Schools of security studies have made many attempts to reconceive the concept of security and security studies by criticizing the neglect of domestic security issues and the ignorance of the community and individuals. The formation of the concept of societal security, and in particular women's security, is one of the achievements of these theoretical developments. Assuming that the acceptance of new approaches in developing societies is strongly influenced by the norms of the political systems, the present article aims to identify the formulation of women’s societal security in Iran. Adopting a critical approach, the author discusses how the concept of women's societal security in Iran is constructed and tries to explain how the Iranian political system deals with the issue of women’s societal security. Data has been collected from secondary resources including books, papers, and archive collections of online newspapers in the last ten years. By systematically reviewing the sources and classifying the main themes, the author identifies the accepted and suppressed components in the area of women's societal security and in relation to the governing institution. The research results indicate the existence of a relationship between women's societal security model and the governing ideology, power, and institutions. The findings reveal how the traditions and the political system have manipulated the concept of women's security to achieve their own objectives by accepting and caring for some insecurities, marginalizing and abandoning a range of other insecurities, and suppressing or completely rejecting some aspects of insecurity. Ultimately it is concluded that the concept of women’s societal security in Iran is shaped by the objectivity of women.

Author Biography

Hamid Sajadi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Studies, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies (IHCS), Tehran, Iran. His research areas include public policy, societal security, securitization, and development plans. Email: h.sajadi@ihcs.ac.ir

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