fozyeh she gets angry when she thinks about the money she is spending for no reason, every day, every morning, in taxis —and the time she wastes stuck in traffic jams— because being a woman cannot go to work by motorcycle. Foziyeh — not his real name — can’t afford to buy a car and the public transport it doesn’t work for you. So you don’t have much choice but the taxi.
“If I was on a motorcycle they would stop me and take it from me. Then they would send a court order home to call me to trial. In that trial, the judge would be a man, of course, because a woman is prohibited from being a judge, and they would end up fining me”, explains this young woman from Tehranwho loves two wheels but is hampered by the ruling clerics in Iran.
Everything took a 180 degree turn 1979. That year he won islamic revolution and the country went from being a Western-friendly authoritarian monarchy where he islamic veil had been prohibited and where they sent gentlemen with ties and military suits to another in which the bosses were the religious menwith white beards to the chest and black dresses to the feet.
The rules took a turn: hijab, the Islamic veil for women, became compulsory; men could marry four women; a woman was forbidden divorce; a woman could not travel alone without the permission of her husband or father; and government jobs public sector They would be for men only. The Iranians became second class citizens.
The situation, however, with the passing of the years and more moderate governments, changed. Now a man can only marry more than one woman if his first wife agrees; a woman has right to divorce of her husband —if a judge, a man, sees sufficient reasons—, and a woman can walk alone on the street. In addition, since 2019, Iranian women have been allowed to enter soccer stadiums. Only, yes, in specific games.
daily pressure
There are, however, many buts. “It’s hard describe in words what it feels like to be a woman in Iran. It’s like a pressure every day. In such a society patriarchal like the one here it is very difficult to do normal things that are done in any other part of the world. I’m lovin ‘it cyclebut I can’t do it in a place where there aren’t many people, nor can I do it after nine at night, or I can’t do it if I don’t go with someone friend“explains Foziyeh. Doing everything you shouldn’t might anger the morality police, who take women with immoral behavior” to the police station for “re-education”.
Of all the measures and limitations that women have, the most visible and important is the compulsory hijab: a daily mark of what a woman has and does not have to do; a constant reminder that if one doesn’t wear it”correctly“, as ordered by those who interpret the holy booksthe problems will end up coming.
If a woman removes her veil in public, for example, she can be charged with “incite immorality and vice“, of “removing the hijab in a public space” and of “publicly performing a sinful act”. Crimes involving up to 10 years in jail.
“There’s a lot feminist womenincluding many young women, who are not mentioned anywhere because they are not famous but who carry prison many, many years This is the price they pay for fighting for justice and freedom. We pay this price every day,” Shirin Ebadi, Iranian human rights lawyer and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said a few years ago.
The last to pay this price was Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old girl who died last week after being beaten at the police station by the iranian morality police. His crime was wearing the mandatory veil too low, showing too much hair.
The cornerstone of the Islamic Republic
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Following his death, protests have spread across the country. First, the protesters called for an end to police violence and the compulsory nature of the veil. Now the demands cry out the collapse of the Islamic Republic and its essences, an indispensable part of which is the obligatory hijab.
“The Iranian government is based on the Islam in its most brutal and basic version -explains Foziyeh-, and uses the veil as suppression and control tool, to tell us that if a woman wears the hijab, nothing bad will happen to her. That no man will harm you as long as you wear the veil. This garment has become a tool of submissionand this is why I truly believe that the Islamic Republic cannot survive if it repeals hijab law required”.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.