Written by Client Relationship Manager, Chloe Woolford.

March 8th, 1979, Tehran. 

In the backdrop of the Islamic Revolution and the toppling of the Pahlavi Dynasty, tens of thousands of Iranian women, girls and allied men gathered to celebrate International Women’s Day freely, and for the first time. However, rapidly, the celebration turned into protest. Women and revolutionaries, who years earlier had worn their head covering in protest of the Kashf-e hijab, were informed that their veils were now mandatory under the edict of the new republic. This event in 1979 set into motion 44 years of a feminist counter-cultural revolution spurred on by the women of Iran.

In September of 2022, Iranian Kurd, Mahsa Aimini was taken from the streets of Tehran by the modesty police [Guidance Patrol] for wearing an “improper hijab”. After reports of severe abuse at the hands of the police, Aimini was reported dead on the 16th September, 2022. From this day onward, civil unrest sparked throughout Iran and remains unfinished to this day.

The significance of these protests within Iran were internationally regarded and response from the West was swift. Major media outlets and popular feminist voices spoke out in support of the Iranian women standing up and using their voices. Social media became adorned with images and videos of women setting alight their head scarfs. Popular news sites reported regularly on the ablaze of hijabs, and the destruction of them as a “symbol of oppression that the regime has visited on its own people in the name of religion” (Guardian, 2022).

These actions set into motion the inevitable discussion on what the hijab means and symbolises. Often, those at the centre of the discussion are not women truly connected with discussion, instead white voices which often end up glorifying the removal of the hijab as a liberating action. These narratives, often informed only by western feminist ideals, uphold a colonialist standard that fails to see feminism as a socio-political movement which is intersectional. Instead they become wrapped up in the ‘symbol’ of the veil and do not consider the nuance and context of protests like those in Iran.

Prior to the revolutionary action in 2022, the most recent protests in Iran took place in 2019. Beginning in response to the rapid inflation of fuel cost, the protests were outspoken not only against severe unemployment rates, economic stagnation and government cronyism, but additionally, the constant attack on women and enforcement of religious clothing standards. It is essential to recognise that these elements do not exist in isolation to one another. The rapid increase of protests in Iran has arisen as a result of an entire system of authoritarian power which has stripped the people of power. Boiling this complex backdrop to women ripping off their hijab in favour of consumable western feminism ultimately discredits the movement.

The West’s decision to support oppressed Muslim women only in contexts such as Iran’s protests, and to remain silent when women in Europe are stripped of their right to wear the hijab, is emblematic of the problem at large. This popular narrative chooses only to pit women who freely elect to wear the hijab against the values of feminism and modernism. In turn, it normalises the Islamophobia Muslim women in the west are subjected to, and consistently pushes the dialogue that the hijab is a symbol of oppression.

Even further, it misses the overarching point.

True liberation for women, globally, only exists when women have absolute freedom of choice. The decision to protest or not protest, to wear the hijab or not wear the hijab. And, in tying any form of symbolism to the hijab – either oppressive or liberating – outside of those cited within Islamic teachings, validates the aforementioned narrow arguments which only seek to limit women.

In the wake of 2023’s International Women’s Day, it is important to bear witness to the global fights that women face, and remember the significance in supporting their right to choose.

Sources: 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/08/iran-mahsa-amini-women-girls-revolt-hope https://www.e-ir.info/2012/04/25/womens-bodies-are-battlefields/

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/01/22/women-rights-iran-protests-00069245 https://www.law.georgetown.edu/immigration-law-journal/blog/the-war-on-muslim-womens-bodies-a-critiq ue-of-western-feminism/

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/iran-women-protests-1979-revolution-1.6605982