Sisters, we need to talk. Feet up, burn sage, drink something hydrating kind of talk. I’m going to start with three shocking statements. The first is that there’s a legal branch of law enforcement called the morality police. The premise of a morality officer is to monitor the conduct of women and girls, making sure the doctrine of “morality” is obeyed. The morality despotism, constituted by an oppressive patriarchal system - of course - includes regulating women’s appearance, movements, expressions, and self-governance.
The second shocking statement, possibly more shocking than the first, is that I’m not revisiting a historic saga. This obsolete concept of binding women within copious layers of prejudice, mandates, and persecution, all before tethering labels around necks that read morality, isn’t a thing of the past. Nope, I’m not referencing some bygone era of long skirts and whalebone corsets, I’m referencing now. Today. This very minute.
My third shocking statement, and the most tragic of all, has to do with a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Amini. On Wednesday 14th September, Amini was arrested for not wearing her hijab in the manner required by Iran’s conservative Islamist directive. A state law that doesn’t only violate human rights but that’s a régime intentionally harmful to Iranian women and girls.
While in custody, Amini lost her life. Eyewitnesses and whistleblowers have said that Amini was violently assaulted, incurring significant injuries that left her unconscious. After days spent in a coma, she succumbed to her injuries on Friday 16th of September. The 22-year-old teacher was kidnapped, tortured, and slain for the heinous crime of – wait for it – showing some hair. Take a minute to let the absurdity sink in. It’s almost so farcical that one could be fooled into thinking it's a humorless joke. But make no mistake - it isn’t. Iranian women are in tremendous danger and are being slaughtered on the streets of Tehran as you’re reading this.
It's interesting how misconstrued the definition of words can become. For example, the Iranian government supposedly honors all that umbrellas morality, meaning they uphold the values of goodness, integrity, virtue, honesty, ethics, and all that sparkling jazz. However, this is unswervingly contrary to Iran’s ongoing acts of brutalism against women. In essence, they’re adopting the word morality to justify murder, domination, harassment, and subjugation. I don’t think there’s enough caffeine in this world that’s going to get me through the tedium of trying to comprehend this level of regressive thinking. It’s simply iniquitous.
Mahsa Amini died unjustly. Presumably alone, frightened, and before her time. Once her death was reported by journalists (who’ve since been assaulted and detained, including Iranian journalist Niloofar Hamedi) it served as a catalyst for a revolutionary feminist movement. An all-encompassing insurgence that at its core demands reform, which has been both exciting (go sisters!) and harrowing to watch.
Not only are these protests a crucial moment in women’s emancipation, but to witness such blatant courage and activism is altogether iconic and inspirational. History is being made with emboldened acts of free-flowing hair, the burning of headscarves, and the unequivocal refusal of allowing women to continually be demoralized. It’s an empowering moment in women’s history. It’s instructive. And it’s a potent reminder of the obligation women have to one another; preserving the principles of women’s liberation by defending it at all costs.
As the civil unrest reaches a lava-hot fever, women have heroically filled the streets with their presence. With remonstration, they’ve burned their hijabs and cut limbs of exposed hair; a ritual that defies the autocratic ideas of femininity, which is inherently related to women’s obedience and subservience. How absolutely terrifying it must be to be a man who needs to utilize violent indoctrination against women to advance his position. To be so delicate, inane, and frightened of women. To have neither dignity for oneself, nor empathy for others. To be so profoundly insecure that the need to impeach women’s power, as to make oneself feel empowered, is the main objective of manhood. How so very, very dreadful it must be to be a man.
Mahsa Amini’s death has been considered “Iran’s George Floyd moment” (Omid Jalili). George Floyd was murdered by racist police in the spring of 2022, which ignited the largest racial justice protests in the United States, since the Civil Rights movement in 1968. The outcry for justice for George Floyd – and all people of color who’ve been unjustly victimized due to systematic racism – extended far beyond the borders of America and its foreign terrains. Instead, it became a global movement.
Much in the same way, Amini’s death has become the greatest feminist revolution this side of Iran’s history. The insufferable theocratic patriarchy has been threatened – and will continue to be threatened – by non-violent protesters in various cities and countries worldwide. Women united in intersectional feminism, gathered in the names of the students at Sharif University in Tehran, who were shot and killed for their protest, and for activist Minoo Majidi, who was beaten to death, and 19-year-old Hadis Najafi, who was shot six times in the chest and face. Nor forgetting 16-year-old Sarina Esmaeilzadeh, who was beaten to death, and the countless protestors, journalists, and lawyers, all murdered by government officials for protesting in Amini’s name.
Mahsa Amini’s death has signified a change in Iran and in feminism itself. Across the world, women are standing together. Our echoing voices are a unified flag that tackles the civil conflicts that women and girls endure. There’s an intercontinental network of humanist reformers seeking to abolish women-centered castigations and global atrocities, seeking the dissemination of parochial values, including theocratic doctrines that advocate for women’s oppression. More than any time before, feminism has utilized contemporary resources – primarily the internet and social media platforms – to create both awareness and a global movement. Contradictory to what Iran thinks, it is not immoral for women to show their hair, and murder isn’t justifiable in any context. Malala Yousafzai once said, “The extremists are afraid of women” which I think reveals the ongoing attempts to try and divest women’s authority. Well Iran, women aren’t commodities. We aren’t going to be treated as such, either.
We – women and allies alike – must soak up every ounce of influence and encouragement from our sisters at war. That is to say that we each need to harness our own source of resolution and be prepared to stand in the face of adversity; arm in arm, and hand in hand, with our global sisters. We must not remain silent; we must not remain complicit.
By the time I finished writing this, approx. 92 protestors have been murdered and approx. 1200 have been imprisoned. The Iranian government has suspended internet access, including up-to-date media coverage reaching the West. That’s another branch of morality that I must be unfamiliar with.
“Mahsa Amini is now a global symbol for freedom,
not just in Iran.”
- Nina Ansary
(Image: www.gazettenet.com)
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