Iranian journalist Zeinab Rahimi has refused to wear the mandatory hijab for over two years, despite the risk of arrest and imprisonment.
She is among a growing number of women and girls who have stopped covering their head in public, in direct defiance of the country’s clerical rulers.
“I enjoy seeing women dress the way they like and letting their hair out,” Rahimi told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda, describing the visible change on the streets of Tehran, the Iranian capital.
“We haven’t experienced this in our country for many years,” added the 22-year-old. “It’s beautiful when you don’t have to wrap yourself up, especially when you have always resented it.”
Women defying the mandatory hijab in Iran.
Turning Point
The turning point was the antiestablishment protests that rocked Iran in 2022, following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who was arrested for violating the hijab law.
Women were at the forefront of the protests, during which some removed and burned their hijab. The demonstrations snowballed into the biggest threat to the authorities in decades, with some protesters calling for an end to clerical rule.
In the wake of the protests, the authorities initially attempted to double down on their enforcement of the hijab, which has been mandatory since soon after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Hard-line lawmakers last year passed a new controversial law to enforce the hijab under which violators would face lengthy prison terms, hefty fines, and travel bans.
But wary of provoking unrest, Iran's Supreme National Security Council suspended the implementation of the Hijab And Chastity law.
A member of Iran’s Expediency Council, which serves as an advisory body to the supreme leader, said this month that the new hijab law was unenforceable.
Mohammad Reza Bahonar told reporters on October 3 that there was essentially “no compulsory hijab law in force.”
His comments triggered an uproar among hard-liners. But they also underscored the reality on the ground in major cities where the authorities have relaxed their enforcement of the hijab, a key pillar of the Islamic republic.
Irreversible Changes
Radio Farda spoke to 12 women in seven Iranian cities who said the number of women ditching the Islamic head scarf had increased on the streets and in cafes and restaurants in recent years.
Rahimi, the Iranian journalist, said women’s shunning of the hijab has been gradual.
Following the 2022 protests, women who did not wear a hijab kept a head scarf in their bag or loosely around their shoulders in case they were approached by the dreaded morality police, which enforced the hijab, she said.
“Nowadays, women go out entirely without a head scarf,” said Rahimi. “They don’t wear it, and they don’t keep it around their shoulders or in their bags.”
Despite the shift, Rahimi said a significant number of women still wear the head scarf for fear of retribution by the authorities.
A young woman wearing Western-style clothes in Iran.
The defiance of the hijab law is starkest in bigger cities. But even in smaller cities and towns, attitudes toward women’s rights, including the freedom to choose what to wear, is changing, and women are defying the authorities.
A woman in the southwestern city of Yasuj, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the “percentage of women who go out without the hijab in Yasuj is much smaller than in Tehran, but locals see these women as brave.”
Many Iranian women believe the changes are here to stay.
“This change cannot be reversed or controlled,” Mojgan Ilanlou, a Tehran-based filmmaker who has documented Iranian women’s struggles, told Radio Farda. “But that doesn’t mean the government has changed its stance on the hijab.”
Ilanlou added that the authorities have been “forced to retreat” by “the determination of Iranian women who fought tooth and nail for their right to wear what they want and now strive to protect that achievement.”
“Authorities know that if they resist it will cost them and it will hurt them profoundly,” she said.