Mona Tajali

Mona Tajali is a social scientist with expertise in gender and politics, human rights, and social movements, especially in Muslim contexts, with a comparative focus on Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey. Her research and teaching highlight strategies for gender equality, feminist activism, and democratization, including efforts that resist gender discrimination, gender-based violence (GBV), and limited opportunities arising out of patriarchal structures. Her publications, with two books published as open access, are centered around questions of how to elect more women to positions of political power, how to reduce barriers that keep women out of politics (such as the recent waves of violence against women in politics-VAWP), and how to further empower women as political actors. She is the author of Women's Political Representation in Iran and Turkey: Demanding a Seat at the Table (EUP 2022), co-author of Electoral Politics: Making Quotas Work for Women (WLUML 2011) with Homa Hoodfar, and co-editor of Women and Constitutions in Muslim Contexts (Revival Press 2024) with Vrinda Narain. Since 2019 she serves as the executive board member of the transnational feminist solidarity network Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) and is currently the director of research of WLUML's multi-sited Women and Politics project and its Transformative Feminist Leadership Institute, focused on training the next generation of feminist leaders in the region. Tajali is a former Associate Professor of International Relations and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Agnes Scott College, a historically women's liberal arts college in Atlanta.

Currently teaching