“Our House Was a Small Islamic Republic”: Social Policing and Resilient Resistance in Contemporary Iran

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article makes an important and original contribution to the literature on women and gender in the Middle East, particularly in the context of the Iranian women's movement. The main argument about the significance and centrality of the family when discussing protest movements and political change is an important intervention. The empirical material is very rich, original and insightful. I would therefore very much support this article to be published.

However, before it being publishable , it will require some major revisions. The main issue that needs addressing is the fact that parts of the article reads like a series of long quotes. As much as I appreciate the rich empirical material, I suggest to cut down the quotes and provide more context and analysis instead. 

I also suggest to reflect more carefully on methodology, methods, research ethics and positionality.

The conclusion will need more expansion, summarise the main findings and make explicit how the empirical findings contribute to the conceptual/theoretical debates.

Finally, the article requires proper language editing and formatting.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Language needs in depth editing.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer A,

 

I hope this message finds you well. We extend our heartfelt gratitude for your thorough review of our manuscript and the valuable comments you provided to enhance its quality. We have meticulously revised the manuscript in accordance with your comments and those of another reviewer. Below, we provide a brief explanation of the revisions made based on your feedback. For a more comprehensive comparison, please refer to the revised manuscript, where we have annotated sections with your specific comments as (Reviewer A) for your convenience. In instances where both you and the other reviewer had similar recommendations, we have referenced (Reviewer A and B) accordingly.

Here are the details of the revisions made based on your recommendations:

1. Your Comment: “The main issue that needs addressing is the fact that parts of the article read like a series of long quotes. As much as I appreciate the rich empirical material, I suggest cutting down the quotes and providing more context and analysis instead.”

In response to this, we have shortened all lengthy quotations to the extent possible, eliminating non-essential information, and have expanded the sections dedicated to analysis and discussion to provide a more balanced and insightful narrative.

2. Your Comment: “I also suggest reflecting more carefully on methodology, methods, research ethics, and positionality.”

The methodology section was a shared concern between you and the other reviewer. We have revised this section based on both sets of comments, providing more precise details regarding our methodology. Additionally, for better structuring of the paper, we have created a separate section for the methodology, ensuring an improved overall organization of the manuscript.

3. Your Comment: “The conclusion will need more expansion, summarizing the main findings and making explicit how the empirical findings contribute to the conceptual/theoretical debates.”

We have carefully revised and rewritten the conclusion, ensuring a comprehensive summary of the main findings. We have explicitly highlighted how our empirical findings contribute to the broader conceptual and theoretical discussions.

4. Your Comment: “Finally, the article requires proper language editing and formatting.”

Finally, we have thoroughly reviewed and edited the manuscript for language accuracy and fluency, ensuring proper formatting throughout.

We sincerely appreciate your valuable feedback, which has significantly enriched our manuscript. We look forward to any further comments you may have.

 

Thank you,

The Authors

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an interesting manuscript that talks about the intersection between family, gender, and religion in the Iranian context. I really enjoyed reading this manuscript. That said, I have the following comments and concerns regarding the current draft. 

1. In the abstract, the authors indicated that they recruited participants from Iran and Turkey to do this study. However, I did not find a designated methodology section. When reading this manuscript, I kept asking myself: (1) Who are the respondents? (2) How did the authors recruit the respondents? (3) Why selecting Turkey and Iran as two contexts? (4) What are the types of interview questions that the authors asked their respondents?

2. In the literature review, the authors provided lots of helpful contextual information that can situation their case. However, the clarity can be improved. On p.5, the authors discussed Smart's approach that focuses on personal relationships. However, it was unclear how Smart's approach deviates from the approach that focuses on traditional norms. Aren't personal relationships situated in traditional norms? Likewise, in the following paragraph, the author started to introduce the family practice approach. As a reader, I wonder: Why introduced these two approaches? How are these connected to your study ?Which theoretical approach did you utilize?

3. The authors provide clear summary of what they found in the conclusion section. However, I saw an opportunity to develop this study's theoretical contribution. While not particularly focusing on the Iranian contexts, there have been many scholars study the  intersection between gender and religion, and many adopted the theoretical angle of women's agency. Since part of the authors' finding is about agency, I believe this study can say something that further expand the theoretical discussions of gender, religious, and family agency. 

I hope these comments are helpful to the authors as they further revise this manuscript. 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer B,

 

I hope this message finds you well. We extend our sincere gratitude for your thorough review of our manuscript and the valuable comments you provided to enhance its quality. We have meticulously revised the manuscript in accordance with your comments and those of another reviewer. Below, we provide a brief explanation of the revisions made based on your feedback. For a more comprehensive comparison, please refer to the revised manuscript, where we have annotated sections with your specific comments as (Reviewer B) for your convenience. In instances where both you and the other reviewer had similar recommendations, we have referenced (Reviewer A and B) accordingly.

Here are the details of the revisions made based on your recommendations:

1. Your Comment: “In the abstract, the authors indicated that they recruited participants from Iran and Turkey to do this study. However, I did not find a designated methodology section. When reading this manuscript, I kept asking myself: (1) Who are the respondents? (2) How did the authors recruit the respondents?”

The methodology section was a shared concern between you and the other reviewer. We have revised this section based on both sets of comments, providing more precise details regarding our methodology. Additionally, for better structuring of the paper, we have created a separate section for the methodology, ensuring an improved overall organization of the manuscript. In this section, we have addressed each of your questions in detail.

2. Your Comment: “In the literature review, the authors provided lots of helpful contextual information that can situate their case. However, the clarity can be improved. On p.5, the authors discussed Smart's approach that focuses on personal relationships. However, it was unclear how Smart's approach deviates from the approach that focuses on traditional norms. Aren't personal relationships situated in traditional norms? Likewise, in the following paragraph, the author started to introduce the family practice approach. As a reader, I wonder: Why introduce these two approaches? How are these connected to your study? Which theoretical approach did you utilize?”

In the theoretical framework section, we have made changes to address your recommendation and to further develop our theoretical discussion. We clarified how Smart's approach, which emphasizes personal relationships, diverges from traditional norms, and we explained the rationale behind introducing both the family practice approach and Smart's approach. Additionally, we articulated how we utilized Morgan's theory in our study. To deepen the discussion, we defined the concept of resilient resistance and discussed the family within a more cohesive framework.

3. Your Comment: “The authors provide a clear summary of what they found in the conclusion section. However, I saw an opportunity to develop this study's theoretical contribution. While not particularly focusing on the Iranian contexts, many scholars have studied the intersection between gender and religion, and many adopted the theoretical angle of women's agency. Since part of the authors' finding is about agency, I believe this study can say something that further expands the theoretical discussions of gender, religious, and family agency.”

To incorporate your insightful comment, we expanded our theoretical discussion not only in the conclusion but also in the abstract, theoretical framework, and introduction. We highlighted how our study contributes to the broader theoretical discussions on gender, religion, and family agency, particularly focusing on women's agency.

 

We sincerely appreciate your valuable feedback, which has significantly enriched our manuscript. We look forward to any further comments you may have.

 

Thank you,

The Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf