Mahnaz Afkhami

Grassroots Approach to Ensuring Safety for Women and Girls

Grassroots educational endeavors must help communities fully grasp the extent of violence and the short- and long-term harm done not only to victims but also to the society at large.

Victories Over Violence: Ensuring Safety for Women and Girls

Victories Over Violence: Ensuring Safety for Women and Girls
A Practitioner’s Manual
2012/Women’s Learning Partnership
Mahnaz Afkhami & Haleh Vaziri

Victories over Violence: Ensuring Safety for Women and Girls is a practitioners’ manual, comprised of 16 sessions. Case studies in each session are drawn from actual events and feature stories set in societies as diverse as Haiti, Malaysia, Nepal, and the United States.

Mahnaz Afkhami: A Memoir: Book Review

Mahnaz Afkhami’s memoir, which appears as a series of interviews by Shahla Haeri and Fereshte Noorai and is edited by her husband, is a moving narrative in Persian that competes with some classics of Middle East women’s studies such as Huda Shaaravi’s Harem Years. Afkhami was head of the Women’s Organization of Iran (WOI) and the first Minister of Women’s Affairs under Pahlavi regime. While in exile in the United States after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Afkhami became one of the founding members of the Sisterhood is Global Institute.

Essentials of Political Participation

What is political participation? What is politics? Why are politics and participation important to women? Why have women everywhere, especially in developing countries, been denied equal opportunity in politics, as in almost all other fields, even when they have not been denied equal rights? What rewards are there for women if they become politically effective? How can women become politically effective?

Leading to Action:

A Political Participation Handbook for Women
2010 / Women’s Learning Partnership / Bethesda, MD
Mahnaz Afkhami & Ann Eisenberg
In consultation with: Lina Abou Habib, Asma Khader, Sindi Medar-Gould, and Jacqueline Pitanguy

Women’s participation is a critical step towards reshaping economic, political, and social conditions to allow for equality in opportunities and results for both women and men. The Leading to Action handbook was designed empower women to become democratic and participatory leaders. Whether the goal is to be elected to office, support a campaign, encourage women to vote, or secure better legislation for the community, this handbook helps women hone their skills to take the next political step. Scenarios are based on criteria set by WLP partners and give real life examples of successes and challenges women face in the political sphere. The appendices include a glossary of terms, extra sessions, and relevant United Nations conventions that support women’s civil and political rights.

Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic: A Review

The Historian / Book Review by Jonathan G. Katz
The ten chapters of this book, a sequel to the editors’ Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam to 1800, reflect several disciplinary approaches. Historians Guity Nashat and Shireen Mahdavi deal with royal marriage and European contacts during the Qajar period. Mansoureh Ettehadieh discusses the participation of women in the 1906 Constitutional Revolution and the faltering gains made during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi. Mahnaz Afkhami, a former secretary-general of the Women’s Organization of Iran, outlines the work of the semiofficial social service agency during the last decade of the Pahlavi period. Haleh Esfandiari examines the role of women parliamentarians both before and after the Islamic revolution.

“Mahnaz Afkhami: A Memoir”: Book Review

“Mahnaz Afkhami: A Memoir” Reviewed by Janet Afary Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies Afkhami, Gholam Reza, Ed., Jame’eh, Dowlat, va Jonbech-i Zanun-e Iran, 1357-1342: Mosahebeh ba Mahnaz Afkhami [Women, State, and Society in Iran 1963-1978: An Interview with Mahnaz Afkhami] Bethesda: Foundation for Iranian Studies, 2003. Pp. IXX + 278. Mahnaz Afkhami’s memoir, which [...]

Women, State, and Society in Iran, 1963-1978

Interview with Mahnaz Afkhami, secretary general of Women’s Organization of Iran (WOI), 1970-1978, and Iran’s minister of women’s affairs, 1975-1978.
2003 / Foundation for Iranian Studies / Bethesda, MD
Gholam Reza Afkhami, ed.

Iranian women gained significant rights and became considerably more active and effective socially, politically, and economically between 1963 and 1978. Mahnaz Afkhami was secretary general of the Women’s Organization of Iran (WOI), 1970-1978, and Iran’s minister of women’s affairs, 1975-1978. In this book she discusses how women propelled the progress they made in Iran’s patriarchal society, how the government’s worldview, politics, and policies affected their progress, and how relevant to their cause was their presence on the international scene and…

Toward A Compassionate Society

2002 / Women’s Learning Partnership / Bethesda, MD
Introduction available online

Towards a Compassionate Society is an anthology focusing on women’s roles in conflict resolution, peace building, and democracy in a culturally and politically diverse world. It addresses the importance of cultural pluralism and women’s role in promoting…

Toward A Compassionate Society: Introduction

We achieved an incredible capacity for doing good or evil in the past hundred years. How do we go from here to a compassionate society? Will the society of tomorrow be anything like our idea of what a caring society should be– a society based on fairness, equity, help to the needy, community, family, an ethical system that stresses the value of the “other?” In a world of instant communication and interconnection, in a world of diverse cultures and standards, how do we uphold common values and how do we live those values? Is a compassionate society possible if we barricade ourselves in or others out by erecting economic, political, psychological, or moral walls that in simple language translate as jails, ghettos, borders, and institutional discrimination? Can a compassionate society be constructed on the notion of exclusivity? If not, how is it possible to overcome the odds?