"Don't get used to the picture of Middle Eastern people being killed.
Do not get used to the picture of Middle Eastern women suffering.
Their lives and their freedom are equally valuable to yours."
Mary
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21 years old
What inspired you to join the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement?
“Women, Life, Freedom” is a complex movement. For many years, we Iranians have witnessed discrimination and oppression by the dictatorial government of the Islamic Republic, and every few years, a protest movement would form in Iran.
In fact, the atmosphere in Iran often feels like people are waiting between protest movements, hoping the next one will bring an opportunity to participate and change the regime.
“Women, Life, Freedom” was also one of these movements, which occurred three years after the last movement of the Iranian people, and this time the spark of this fire was a feminist issue: the right of women to choose their clothing.
A right that the Islamic Republic has spent years trying to destroy through its propaganda machine.
We all know that women’s rights, and in particular the issue of the hijab, represents the Achilles’ heel of the Islamic Republic and is a way for it to control people even in their most personal matters.
For this reason, we all came to the collective understanding that a blow to the Islamic Republic’s body-targeting women’s rights. would be a very fundamental blow.
As Iranian women, we know that a religious dictatorship feeds on the oppression of women. We had been oppressed for years, and this movement, which recognized our pain and oppression, was a dream for us.
I enjoyed shouting the slogans of “Women, Life, Freedom” in the streets.
That I was fighting for life – something that the Islamic Republic, as an ideology based on the concept of life after death, opposes.
That I was shouting the word freedom:
Freedom not only in the sense of the departure of this regime but freedom in its civil sense.
Freedom from all taboos for women.
Freedom from the concepts that had limited us women and queer people for years.
Freedom from all the old and rotten ideas that had led to the current state of Iranian politics.
Can you share a personal experience that shaped your views on women’s rights in Iran?
My family was intellectual, and everything was based on equality. That’s why my entry into school was like a big shock for me.
I know schools are much better now, but when I started, it was truly shocking.
Our schools were single-sex and in these schools, some of the official books had two versions for women and men.
There was a book called ‘Lifestyle,’ and the version for girls emphasized kindness and soft language to convince us that we were emotional and, therefore, intellectually inferior to men.
This was actually written in these books and repeated in various lessons. All these books supported the idea that women, because of their lower intellectual capacity, should let the men around them make decisions for them.
We had special teachers in school whose job was to shape our minds. They tried to convince us that our most important role and only important role in life was to be a mother, that we should cover ourselves, and they punished us for anything they considered immodest.
They would kick us out of school for grooming our eyebrows, and if we had nail polish, they would force us to remove it with sugar cubes. All those experiences still traumatize me.
Whenever we tried not to be ugly in our single-sex school, they would line us up and say, “No one will marry you like that because you’re not modest.”
School is an educational environment, but for us, this entire educational environment revolved around controlling a woman’s body and training her to be a good wife.
The strange and painful part was that very, very few of the students and their families supported this idea. The rest of us had the same equality-oriented mindset that is prevalent all over the world today.
Imagine yourself hearing those words!
The whole school period was a shock for me and showed me the government’s perception of Iranian women.
All in all, it was very hard to believe that there was such a deep gap between the idea of us, the new generation of girls, and the government officials.
After that, and after graduating from school, whenever women’s rights were discussed in Iran, I would think of what our school principal once said:
“Don’t you cover your genitals? So why don’t you cover yourself and go out?”, that was very insightful for me.
I would say to myself: “They think I’m genital, now it makes sense.”
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What does the slogan "Woman, Life, Freedom" mean to you personally?
They want us to be ashamed of being women. Everything they do is aimed at this.
The modern Iranian woman has hidden her presence from the Islamic Republic regime for years.
To me, the ‘woman’ part of the slogan ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ symbolizes the revelation of the modern Iranian woman. This slogan means to me that the era of hiding ourselves is over.
We no longer have to live a double life—a woman accepted by the government who wears a hijab on the streets and the woman we truly are at private parties. We no longer have to be ashamed of our true selves. Being a woman is no longer a shame.
This slogan, to me, is a public declaration: we are women and we are proud of it and we no longer intend to falsely present ourselves to your liking or hide our true selves.
The Islamic Republic government is afraid of the word “free woman.” This word has no good connotations in government discourse.
To me, the word ‘freedom’ symbolizes a new era in Iran. Iranians have hated their regime for years and have been trying to change it, but this is the first time that civic concerns were as important as economic and political concerns.
This slogan represents the existence of a new society. A society that transcends religious politics in the heart of the Middle East. A society that is leaving the Middle Ages behind, alone and amidst the turmoil of the Middle East.
The word “life” is also a public expression of departure from the values of the regime. The religious regime of Iran does not value “life”.
In our opinion, they are the enemy of life and beauty and everything related to it.
This public declaration means to us that we have moved beyond the values that deem life secondary and no longer accept the destruction of our current lives under the pretext of ‘life after life.’
Kianoush Sanjari, a person who recently committed suicide to protest this regime and to attract global attention, said something very important in his suicide note:
“We die for the love of life.”
This is our border with the regime: They kill for enmity with life and we die for our endless love for life and our endless hope to bring it back to our land.
What challenges have you faced as part of the movement?
Certainly, the most important challenge we faced in this movement was ensuring our security. Every day we went out into the streets, we knew we could be killed by their bullets, blinded by their guns, or, at best, arrested.
If we were arrested on the streets, many things could happen to us. We could be lucky and be released. Or we could be raped and tortured or transferred to the regime’s political prisons to stay there for years or be executed.
We went out into the streets every day for several months in most cities in Iran and tried to bring about change, but the Iranian regime was armed, and we were not.
The next thing was that we expected our activities to be more noticed in the world.
At least I can say that at that time, we thought to ourselves that if Western governments supported the Iranian people, it could be a game changer. But now I understand that it was a false hope.
Have you experienced backlash from authorities or conservative elements in society? How have you navigated those risks?
We were retaliated against.
At first, in the Women, Life, Freedom movement, we tried to learn how to participate in protests anonymously through the Internet, which did not help enough.
The government was stronger than us and many of us were arrested daily. In addition, the Internet was completely cut off and only certain people could provide us with VPNs that actually worked.
I think the reason why the Women, Life, Freedom movement took its path off the streets was also because of this lack of security.
Every day, many people were arrested and naturally could not continue to protest.
After the Women, Life, Freedom movement calmed down under the influence of severe repression, the conservative government forces made life harder for us than before.
They filled all the places with facial recognition cameras and trained many spies for the subways and streets who took photos and videos of women without hijab and put them on trial.
Meantime, the regime began to execute the arrested protesters.
The only way we could continue the struggle, which was the least costly, was to refuse to wear the hijab in our daily lives.
Many women continue to resist every day, regardless of the hijab police and spies of the Islamic Republic, and are arrested and deprived of their basic rights.
Under a recently passed law, these women must pay heavy fines and may have their passports revoked, preventing them from leaving the country.
How do you stay resilient in the face of threats or adversity?
We are hopeful.
We all know that the regime has reached a point where it cannot continue to operate as before.
The regime will change.
We hope that the world will come to our aid and that together we can establish a democratic and secular government in Iran.
The fall of Bashar Assad makes us more hopeful than ever, especially since he seemed unstoppable until the last moment.
We hold onto hope and faith in the famous saying:
‘In dictatorial regimes, everything seems normal until five minutes before collapse.’
How has social media helped you and others in the movement?
Social media helped us find each other.
It helped us figure out where to gather next.
It helped us try to get our voices out to the world with the many videos and photos we saw and took of the battle scenes from different cities in Iran.
In addition, we often found useful information on social media platforms like Twitter about avoiding detection by regime agents.
However, the government usually discovered and neutralized these tactics before we could use them.
What message do you hope to send to international supporters through social platforms?
I have two main messages.
First, the Iranian regime is dangerous for everyone, not just the women who live there.
All of us, the citizens of this world, must find a way to change it so that we are safe from the dangers it poses to the world.
This regime is making Syria and Iraq unsafe and complicating the war between Israel and Palestine.
This dictatorship is not just the problem of the Iranian people; it is a global problem.
Second: Don’t get used to dictatorship in the Middle East.
Don’t get used to the suffering of people in the Middle East.
Don’t get used to the violation of women’s rights in the Middle East.
Just as women in America suffer from not having the right to an abortion in their state, there are women who suffer from not having the right to choose how to dress.
These sufferings are equally valuable. A Middle Eastern woman can also be a woke and a feminist.
Do you know what that means? It means that it is not easier for her to endure this discrimination than it is for the rest of the world.
That is why we should not become desensitized to these scenes—the scenes of women being killed and suffering in the Middle East. Their suffering is suffering, too.
I have noticed that many people have become so accustomed to seeing human rights violated in the Middle East that they are no longer shaken by anything that happens there.
People don’t know the Middle East, they just have a very unclear picture of it.
Help us to again ‘humanify’ the people in the Middle East in the eyes of media and news.
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Do you see cultural shifts happening within Iran because of the movement? If so, how?
Yes, this is happening.
But I think this movement is the result of a cultural shift that has slowly transformed Iranian society from a religious society in 1979 to one in which the majority of the people want a secular government.
These days, I don’t classify Iranians as a religious nation at all.
Even I remember that many people from the generation before us and the generation of the revolution have distanced themselves from their beliefs in these years.
Fighting this regime and its ideological beliefs has become the most important part of everyday middle-class life.
I know women who are very religious, but because of the ongoing struggle, they no longer wear the hijab. “I will not wear a cloth that still has the blood of my sisters on it.”
In terms of women’s rights, Iranian society has become sensitive to everything.
In all areas of Iranian society, from a girl’s relationship with her parents to family gatherings to romantic relationships and shopping queues, we are all learning and improving.
The language of society is changing, and many sexist proverbs and expressions are no longer used. There are many changes underway.
What role do you think the Iranian diaspora plays in amplifying the movement?
In this past period, the most important thing they have tried to do is to introduce us to the world and make our voices heard.
However, I do not think that this will play a major role in changing the Iranian regime.
We, in Iran, do not believe that having our voice heard by the people in the world is the only help that people from outside of Iran could give us.
Iranians living in Iran are under security pressure and cannot do much.
Expatriates outside Iran can do a lot.
For example, they could form a strong opposition force capable of paving the way through negotiations with governments that support regime change in Iran.
Or, in the Women, Life, Freedom movement, we were hit hard by the shutdown of internet access.
These are things that can be solved from outside Iran.
How can the global community better support women in Iran?
First, they should start by getting to know us. The media’s stereotype of the ‘Middle Eastern woman’ does not reflect the reality of many women in Middle Eastern countries.
The penalties for dissent in Iran are very high, and many people are afraid of execution, torture, and imprisonment.
The least the international community can do to support the Iranian people’s struggle is to pressure the Iranian government for its brutal repression of its opponents.
Although this may seem like a distant dream, politicians in democratic societies are largely forced to submit to the will of the people.
What if one day the people of the world ask them to do something about the torture and repression of Iranian women and men who oppose them?
I have great hope for this dream.
What changes do you hope to see for women in Iran in the next five or ten years?
I would like to see Iranian women free.
Wherever I travel and look at the free women of those countries, I tell myself that the women of my country deserve this too.
I feel that Iranian society is accepting of a system based on gender equality and a large part of the failure to realize this dream is due to government interference.
I would like to see the day when every woman makes her own decisions and the fateful decisions of her life are not determined by men in turbans or ties.
I hope for the day when this daily struggle ends.
A day when my religious friends can wear their headscarves freely, and my non-religious friends can burn theirs without fear.
And that is when we can start to live a normal life.
If you could speak directly to the next generation of women in Iran, what would you tell them?
For the freedom that you have now, that I am sure you will have, many women and men have sacrificed themselves.
This is not just about the women’s movement, life, freedom.
Before that, many women sacrificed their lives so that you could study.
So that you could leave the house.
So that you could work.
The freedoms that you have now are the result of the blood that thousands of brave Iranian and non-Iranian women and men have shed on this path.
You must know this and you must not let anyone and nothing, again, decide for the Iranian woman: except herself.
Get to know these women and men.
Get to know the men who were executed on this path, not because they are saints, but because the stories of the martyrs of the path to freedom are worth hearing.
Get to know the woman who was the first to go up a platform and hang her headscarf on a pole in 2017.
Get to know the woman who set herself on fire in 1993 to protest the mandatory hijab.
The history of this country is full of people who fought for the freedom that I am sure you will have.
And their stories must be heard.
Preserving the legacy of equality is your duty today.
What does victory look like for you and the movement?
This movement is made up of many people.
Some still support the constitutional monarchy, and some want a liberal democratic future for Iran.
Others want a future where a socialist system is at work in Iran.
The only thing we all have in common is that victory for us is the non-existence of the Islamic Republic.
Victory for us is the re-emergence of “Iran.”
We achieve victory the day we overthrow this power structure and establish a system where we can form our own parties and live under a framework that grants equal rights to all as ‘human beings,’ regardless of religious ideology
Is there anything else you'd like to share with the world?
Don’t get used to the picture of Middle Eastern people getting killed.
Do not get used to the picture of Middle Eastern women suffering.
Their lives and their freedom are equally valuable to yours.
