Salon: Women in Iran are protesting the veil — and this time is different

In 1848, a distinguished female poet and religious scholar from the city of Qazvin is said to have removed her veil in an assembly of 81 men to call an end to the ruling political and religious structures of her time. Although everyone talked about the incident, very few of her contemporaries admit to seeing her unveiled.

In fact, only one eye-witness has anything much to say about it.  The act of seeing itself implicates men in some complicated ways, it would seem. Some men implied that the poet’s veil may have slipped off. Others just report that one of the men in her presence was so gravely shaken that he cut his throat with his own hands. Covered in blood and shrieking with excitement, he fled the scene. [...]

Men and women fought together in the Iranian Revolution to upend an outdated and oppressive system of government. Just as in other nationalist revolutions, though, women who fought and won alongside their men were later asked to give up their civil liberties to maintain national unity and prevent “unnecessary fractions in the national body.” Ultimately, that national body was to be led by a new patriarchy, whose legal systems would give Shiite men twice the rights that women enjoyed. Women hoped against all odds that various factions would agree on a system of government that, unlike the U.S.-installed former monarchy, would represent the Iranian people. Instead, women were left with a new government that marked its difference to the rest of the world by instituting compulsory veiling for all women, regardless of religion. [...]

Thirty-nine years later, I am once again watching the country of my birth from afar. And what I notice this time, as I look at the images of girls and women of Enghelab Avenue, is the presence of men. In every one of the images of a woman with her veil on a stick men are there, turning, looking, and watching — with a hint of awe in their eyes. Men recording and snapping pictures of women standing on boxes and park benches. Men, online and off, applauding, with great pride, women who willingly defy national laws to demand civil liberties as equals. This is striking, and a radical difference from times past.

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