In The Shadow Of War, Iran’s Women Continue Their Fight For Freedom

To say that war equals hardship and suffering would be a truism, but in the war waged by Israel and the United States on Iran, identities are being reshaped, divisions forced upon people, and alliances forming that overshadow longstanding struggles. What else could explain the attack on Iran's Evin prison, housing women detainees who had waged protests in 2022 against the mandatory hijab—but the brutality of war? Stories of doing the rounds right now, of Iranian women detainees clearing the debris of their shattered prison hospital, then being bundled away to a new location, undisclosed to them, are deeply moving.

Today, with Iran caught in the fire from Israel and the United States, many Iranians have united under a shared sense of Iraniyat, of nationhood. Yet beneath this unity, the currents of resistance—especially the fierce fight led by Iranian women over the hijab—have not disappeared, not forever. Instead, they wait for better times, like a river flowing under ice.

Since the protests erupted following the tragic death of Mahsa Amini—a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman detained for allegedly violating Iran’s compulsory hijab laws—thousands of women have faced brutal repression for challenging the regime’s control over their bodies. But history shows that repression cannot extinguish calls for autonomy and dignity; that the hijab debate will not be resolved by bombs or brute force.

Previously, Outlook dedicated an issue titled “Women, Life, Freedom: A Homage To Those Who Died In Iran,” centering on the women-led protests after Mahsa Amini’s death. It featured courageous acts—cutting hair, burning scarves, risking arrest—in over 160 cities. The issue chronicled how the hijab became a site of resistance and how the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” animated a mass movement. Read more and revisit that powerful edition from April 2023 here:

The accusations, the allegations, the torture in the aftermath of resistance: Elnaz Sarbar Boczek, an Iranian women's rights activist based in California writes about how the streets actually fell silent in 2022.

When society changes, a silent revolution dawns in cinema, too: GP Ramachandran and Medha Akam, film critic and gender specialist, respectively, weigh into Abbas Kiarostami's Shrin and Jafar Panahi's Offside, films that foretold a society on the edge of changing.

Years ago, a soccer game in Iran became a national political event as the host country defeated the Israeli team. But politics never left the field, writes Akshay Sawai.

Protest and resistance don't always take the form we expect it to take—but that does not mean it is gone, or over. Seema Guha, senior journalist, looks at the stirring beneath the silences in Iran's protests against the mandatory hijab.