Where is the Iranian women's movement heading?

In 2006 the Iranian women’s movement launched the One Million Signatures Campaign calling on the government to align national laws with its international treaty obligations on women’s human rights. This article provides a retrospective analysis of the Campaign’s goals and strategies, the constraints it faced, where it succeeded, where it failed, and why. The author argues that although the Campaign experienced some success at human rights awareness-raising at the grassroots, it failed to mount an effective effort at upwards advocacy to impact legislative change for women’s rights. This failure was the result of both internal discord within the women’s movement, and extreme external pressure from State forces that inhibited Campaign activities. The experience of the Campaign brings under scrutiny the efficacy of human rights discourse to advocate upwards for change in the existing power structure of the Islamic State. With this in mind, this article examines where the women’s movement might be heading in terms of strategy and approach as it moves on from the One Million Signatures Campaign, but presses on with the overarching goal to achieve gender equality in Iran.