Abstract
The political participation of women has been the subject of various studies; however, the intersection of lived experience and agency—and their mutual influence on women's political life—has received less attention. It is generally believed that political structures and dominant social frameworks shape women’s political engagement. Yet, the life of Maryam Firouz challenges this assumption. Her understanding of identity and role was not strictly confined by conventional definitions. While her political activities were aimed at transforming gender relations in favor of women, her ideal woman figure was that of a "woman/mother" who possessed both political and gender consciousness. Interestingly, the maternal role was largely absent in her own lived experience.
This article explores how Maryam Firouz’s individual agency and lived experience shaped her political life. It specifically examines how her agency disrupted and challenged the presumed private/public dichotomy, and how gendered structures affected her experience. Drawing on qualitative research methods and a historical approach, this study analyzes the nuanced interaction between structure and agency in Firouz’s life. It reveals that her conscious defiance of traditional roles, her poliitical choices, and her contradictions make her a unique and influential figure in the political history of contemporary Iran.
Keywords: Lived Experience, Gendered Structures, Agency, Gender Consciousness, Women’s Political Participation.
 
Introduction
Maryam Firouz is among the few women in Iran’s contemporary history who succeeded in assuming significant political roles and asserting herself within a deeply patriarchal political sphere. She viewed the Tudeh Party as a space that offered the potential for challenging both the political status quo and advocating for gender equality. Beyond founding and heading the Women's Organization within the Tudeh Party, she became the only woman elected to the party’s Central Committee—despite fifteen years of resistance from the party leadership, which also stripped her of her leadership in the women’s organization.
The main objective of this article is to investigate the relationship between agency and lived experience in shaping Maryam Firouz’s political life. It asks: How did her individual agency and biographical experiences influence her political engagement? In what ways did her personal agency challenge the conventional private/public dichotomy? And how did gendered structures shape her lived experience?
Sylvia Walby argues that the analysis of women’s political participation should go beyond the surface-level study of their actions to address the deeper issue of gendered political struggle. She notes that women’s political activism often aims at transforming gender relations in their favor—unlike many men’s involvement, which frequently resists such transformation. This theoretical lens is key to understanding Firouz’s political path.
 
Materials & Methods
This study employs a qualitative research method alongside a historical approach. Qualitative research, especially of the phenomenological type, emphasizes the meaning and significance of lived experience. According to Max van Manen, phenomenological research concerns the “validity” of human experiences and how reflecting on them deepens our understanding of human existence as a whole.
The historical approach focuses on the dynamic interactions among various elements that shaped the past while influencing the present and future. It serves as a method for tracing the defining events in an individual's life. Data for this study were collected using documentary and archival sources, including memoirs, party records, and existing secondary literature.
 
Discussion and Results
Maryam Firouz's lived reality was entangled with politics from the very beginning. Born into an aristocratic and politically influential family, her life was shaped by patriarchal norms. Her arranged marriage at the age of 16 to a 45-year-old man, Esfandiari, was politically motivated. These gendered and aristocratic structures inherently excluded women from political participation.
The death of her father marked a turning point. It represented the collapse of patriarchal control and opened space for her individual agency to emerge. Her subsequent divorce from Esfandiari not only symbolized a personal rebellion but also marked her first step into political activism. Her bold decision to join the Tudeh Party, despite her elite family background, earned her the label “Red Princess” in foreign media.
Firouz’s agency thus ran counter to dominant narratives that define women as “non-political beings” more concerned with personal or domestic issues. She saw the Tudeh Party as both a platform for political activism and a vehicle for advocating gender equality. Drawing on Walby’s framework, Firouz’s political engagement can be seen as an effort to alter gender power relations in favor of politically conscious mothers and women.
However, her relationship with gendered structures was deeply ambivalent. She rarely criticized her father or the patriarchal structure of her elite family, and even when she disagreed with the Tudeh leadership or her husband, Kianouri, she attributed their behavior to circumstantial pressures rather than structural sexism. This contradiction reveals a complex interplay between gender consciousness and political loyalty.
Maryam Firouz consistently emphasized the role of motherhood. She even created the “Mothers’ Council” within the women’s organization of the Tudeh Party. Yet, the ideal woman she championed—an aware and politically engaged mother—stood in stark contrast to her own life, which was largely detached from the maternal role. Her life was wholly dedicated to political activism.
She often portrayed her father, the party, and Kianouri as respectful of women, despite the fact that all three acted, at different points, as obstacles to her political ascent. The Tudeh Party’s leadership did not formally recognize her Central Committee membership for over a decade and revoked her leadership of the women’s organization. Still, she remained loyal to the party and continued to claim it upheld gender equality—another manifestation of the contradictions within her political and gendered agency.
This paradoxical behavior reflects the tensions between her personal experiences, gendered expectations, and political commitments. In navigating this triad—father, party, husband—she often downplayed structural gender bias while simultaneously fighting against it through her political actions.
 
Conclusion
The death of Maryam Firouz’s father played a pivotal role in the emergence of her agency, allowing her to break through the private/public divide and enter the political arena. Her activism aimed to transform gender relations to benefit women, especially mothers, although her own life deviated significantly from the maternal ideal she promoted.
Despite facing institutional resistance from her family and the Tudeh Party, her gender awareness and individual agency positioned her as a powerful political figure. Her life challenges the assumption that women are inherently less political and shows how individual agency, even in highly structured and patriarchal contexts, can redefine the boundaries of political participation.
Maryam Firouz remains a significant figure in Iran’s contemporary history—one whose political life reflects both the possibilities and contradictions of female agency within a male-dominated political landscape.