Iranian Women on Taking Their Country Back
On September 16 in Tehran, a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Amini—known to those who loved her by Jina, her Kurdish name—died after being detained by Iran’s morality police. They accused her of dressing improperly (a spurious standard used to harass Iranian women) and took her away from her family. Authorities tried to claim she died of a heart attack, but her father told BBC Persian that witnesses had seen her being beaten in custody.
In the weeks since her death, a potent protest movement has taken over the streets of Iran. Women have cut off their hair, shed their hijabs (a covering that has been compulsory for over 43 years), and chanted the Kurdish rallying cry “Woman Life Freedom,” daring to defy a government that treats them like second-class citizens. The government of Iran’s record on women’s rights is abysmal: the World Economic Forum’s 2022 gender gap report ranked the nation at 143 out of 146 countries for gender parity. And now the people of Iran—both female and male—are fighting back. Security forces have responded brutally, reportedly arresting thousands of protestors and killing hundreds—including at least 23 children.
For Iranians around the world, watching the people of their homeland remain undaunted in demanding the end of the country's Islamic regime has been both inspiring but difficult to witness—often literally, as Iran has a record of jailing journalists and shutting down social media. In this multi-day project, women across the Iranian diaspora consider what the "Woman Life Freedom" movement means to them: they help us understand the history that brought us here; they tell their own stories of loss and fury and hope; they describe the power of mobilizing with their Iranian sisters abroad; they reflect on the relationship between beauty standards and identity, between fashion and freedom; they share photos and stories that celebrate who the Iranian people really are away from the yoke of the Islamic regime—vivacious, colorful, beautiful people. They express the importance of being seen, heard, and amplified.
Read the first five stories below, and watch this space for more tomorrow and over the coming days.
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