Mona Tajali

Mona Tajali

Mona Tajali

  • CDDRL Visiting Scholar, 2023-25

Biography

Mona Tajali is a scholar of gender and politics, specializing in women's political participation and representation in Muslim countries, with a comparative focus on Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey. Her research includes analysis of feminist mobilization against patriarchal structures as well as the experiences of institutionalization of women's rights in semi-democratic and non-democratic contexts. She is the author of Women’s Political Representation in Iran and Turkey: Demanding a Seat at the Table (2022) and co-author of Electoral Politics: Making Quotas Work for Women (2011), both published as open access. She is also the co-editor of Women and Constitutions in Muslim Contexts (2024), the first compilation analyzing several national constitutions of the Muslim world through a gender lens.

A firm believer in engaging across the academic-practitioner divide, Tajali has been a long-term collaborator with transnational solidarity network and Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), and, since 2019, has served as a member of its executive board. She is published in both academic and popular outlets, among them the Middle East JournalPolitics & GenderThe Conversation, and The Washington Post. Tajali is a former associate professor of international relations and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta.

publications

Blogs
May 2024

To Boycott or Participate? Explaining Women in Iran’s and Turkey’s Recent Elections

Author(s)
cover link To Boycott or Participate? Explaining Women in Iran’s and Turkey’s Recent Elections

In The News

Farnaz Zabetian and Roshanak Rahimi painted this mural, the second in a Bay Area series, in solidarity with the Iranian people, in Clarion Alley in San Francisco on Nov. 2, 2022.
News

CDDRL Visiting Scholar Teaching Fall Course on Global Feminisms

The course taught by Mona Tajali will examine feminist theories and concepts that can help students better appreciate the diversity and heterogeneity among feminisms, as well as the role and potential of cross-border solidarity and collective action around various feminist concerns.
cover link CDDRL Visiting Scholar Teaching Fall Course on Global Feminisms
Mona Tajali presents at CDDRL seminar
News

Women and Politics in Iran and Turkey

CDDRL Visiting Scholar Mona Tajali explores the complexities of women’s representation under autocratic governments, using the contexts of Iran and Turkey.
cover link Women and Politics in Iran and Turkey