Ruzbeh Saadati – March 7, 2020
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| 1979 Women’s protest in Tehran: Large crowd demonstrating on International Women’s Day shortly after the revolution, protesting compulsory hijab and advocating rights. |
On the Occasion of March 8; International Women’s Day
The widespread argument that “women are half of society and therefore should have equal rights” is both foolish and dangerous.
It is foolish because it ties women’s rights to their quantity. That is, if women made up only a third of society, would they then not be entitled to such rights? By the same logic, the status of other minorities, who likely constitute only a tiny fraction of society, becomes clear: from the outset, this reasoning disregards sexual minorities and their rights. It rests on an unconventional understanding of human beings and their rights. Here, rights are not defined in relation to the human being itself but rather in relation to the number of humans, making this argument inherently flawed.
It is dangerous because it implicitly envisions the majority as a justified population with a superior position. Although the outcome of the argument—equal rights for women—is positive, the reasoning contains an irrelevant premise that implicitly reinforces the notion that quantity should serve as the basis for judgment and the determining factor in such matters. A majority, generally comprising more than half of the population, when read mercilessly, could foster the perception that the majority is always right—whether it practices tyranny or rises against it.