Women In Iran

It goes without saying that Iran has changed tremendously since Farah Pahlavi and her husband, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the late Shah of Iran, boarded a plane to the exile on January 16, 1979, seeking refuge from the then incoming Islamic revolution.

It goes without saying indeed. And yet it is difficult to not say, as I have recently visited the exiled Empress in Paris. It is difficult to shake the hand of a most remarkable woman and not attempt to risk a glimpse of history through her eyes. What must she be thinking? Where do her thoughts lie, as she watches the charged events unfolding in today’s Iran? I wondered, not just because she is a monarch, nor a politician, nor an opponent of the current regime, but also because she is a woman; an Iranian herself. Here was a royal chased out of her country by revolution, only to find herself watching the sparks of a new one from far, far away; a younger, much more fragile revolution, but a revolution.

Women. Life. Freedom.

On September 16, a young Kurdish Iranian woman was arrested and killed by the regime’s morality police for improperly wearing her head scarf. Mahsa Amini’s death reverberated across the Islamic republic like a quiet flame, and then a conflagration too big to contain. Seemingly overnight, Amini’s martyrdom inspired generations of Iranian women who had been forced into disappearing for too long. It was contagious. We all saw the footage: despite a repressive crackdown, despite an internet blackout, despite the arrest of journalists and activists, despite the ruthless executions and killings, the world got to see a glimpse of the bravery of Iranian women leading the front lines.

?Whether or not it will be called a revolution, time will tell, but for the moment, it certainly looks like the beginning of one. Like the start of a beautiful - albeit dangerous - dream of change.?The change that the women of Iran are calling for is radical, but so are most rightful causes. Their demands are radical precisely because of how normal and ordinary they are. It seems painstakingly obvious now, in retrospect, that change will be led by feminist voices in a country that repressed women for decades. We should’ve seen it coming. It seems evident, ordinary, reasonable even, that freedom, life, and women are intertwined. That neither can exist without the other two.

Compare this chant to those of the revolution that exiled Farah Pahlavi. The differences in contexts are palpable. The Islamic revolution is not of the same scale, context, or circumstances that we are witnessing today in the feminist uprising.

The characters are different as well, despite their gender. The women in the street today bear no resemblance to the empress in exile. She was a woman of status and power. They are mostly working class, underprivileged youths. The empress was able to find safe refuge abroad, the women on the ground today have nowhere to go and everything to lose, including their lives.

But still, it is difficult to look at the exiled Iranian woman leader and not reflect upon the power of the many women leaders fighting in Iran today. To compare her role as an Empress destined to produce a male heir, to their roles, several decades later, as women challenging one of the world’s cruelest patriarchies. It’s difficult not to look at the past and compare it to the present, to guess at the future. From monarchy to Islamic republic, from one revolution to another, dare we imagine a future of women, life, and freedom??