• Introduction: Marginalisation of gender and approaches to women in Middle Eastern studies; Part I. The Discourse of Modernity: 1. Social diversity on women's issues in nineteenth-century Iran; 2. Women and the ear of constitutionalism; 3. Women and the era of nation building; 4. Women and the era of nationalism; 5. Women and the era of modernisation; Part II. The Discourse of Revolution: 6. Gender as a revolutionary discourse; 7. Women and the political transition from modernisation to Islamisation; Part III. The Discourse of Islamisation: 8. The Islamic construction of family; 9. Women and national participation in the Islamic Republic; 10. Policing the family; Conclusion.

'Histories of modern Iran and the 1979 revolution in particular have dealt with gender marginally. Parvin Paidar's lucid study successfully demonstrates the centrality of women in the political process.' Shusha Guppy, The Times Higher Education Supplement