Women Hold Up Half The Sky!

 

Women Take 

Center Stage in

Antigovernment 

Protests Shaking 

Iran

…their catalyst was the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, 

[in custody of the morality police, arrested for not covering her hair completely] on Sept. 16 and its connection to the hijab law, the most visible manifestation of a theocracy that makes women second to men in politics, in parenting, in the office and at home.

The nationwide protests challenging Iran’s authoritarian leadership, now in their 10th day, have fed on a range of grievances: a collapsing economy, brazen corruption, suffocating repression and social restrictions handed down by a handful of elderly clerics. On Monday, they showed no sign of abating, and neither did the harsh government effort to suppress them despite international condemnation.

Tossing head scarves into bonfires, dancing bareheaded before security agents, young women have been at the forefront of these demonstrations, supplying the defining images of defiance.

Iranian women had participated in protests against the clerical establishment before, but never before had they been spark, leaders and foot soldiers all at once. More than two dozen have been arrested so far, and several female protesters have been killed.

It was a female journalist, Niloufar Hamedi of Shargh, an Iranian daily, who first brought Ms. Amini’s story to light. Ms. Hamdei was arrested last week and is being held in solitary confinement at Evin prison, according to her colleagues.

“I see a lot of anger and a lot of rage in young women,” said Golshan, 28, a women’s rights activist from Isfahan who has organized small groups of friends to gather every night to chant, “No to hijab, no to oppression, only equal rights.”

Women are paying for their defiance in blood. On Saturday night, the riot police beat Golshan with a baton, leaving her dizzy and in pain, her neck frozen. (Like others interviewed, she insisted on being identified only by her first name to avoid reprisal.)

Iranian women have been contesting the law mandating hijabs and long, loose robes that cloak the body for decades. The women’s rights movement has also pushed — with limited success — against laws that allowed men to divorce more easily than women, granted men exclusive custody of children, lifted restrictions on polygamy for men, lowered the marriage age for girls and required women to get their husbands’ or fathers’ permission to travel.

Under former President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate, young Iranians got used to a degree of flexibility, as the morality police grew less stringent. Long hair snaked from under ever-looser head scarves. Makeup got heavier, hemlines shorter. Clothing once restricted to dark, somber shades turned chartreuse and hot pink, embroidered and appliquéd.

Since Ebrahim Raisi, an ultraconservative, became president a year ago, he has systematically tightened enforcement of strict social and religious rules.