Performative Forms of Women’s Protests in Iran

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Most Middle Eastern countries have authoritarian regimes that at best treat women as the second sex and violate their basic rights. Their grand narrative of power is defined by patriarchal and religious values. It is common in such regimes to ignore the rights of women and queers, as well as to humiliate them – regimes that view “the feminine other” as a threat to the male hegemony govern society from a tribal, non-pluralist, and dictatorial perspective. 

Women, queers, environmentalists, advocates of nuclear disarmament, etc. are considered threats by totalitarian and petrified governments in the Middle East – including Iran. According to the autocratic regime’s rules, these groups are minorities fighting against the regime. The rise of extremist and fundamentalist parties in democratic countries, on the other hand, is causing xenophobia, racism, nationalism, and anti-immigration, which is a grave threat to democracy. In such a situation, by supporting women’s uprisings in countries with dictatorial governments, like Iran, women’s and queer rights activists can defend the concept of democracy in the world.

© REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

In the Middle East, the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the most conservative totalitarian regimes. In dealing with social movements, the regime is hostile, aggressive, and conflictual. The government depends on confrontation and rejection to maintain its political-social order. In Iran’s current situation, femininity is a powerful and threatening factor of the fake order of the regime, which essentially ignores concepts such as equality, justice, and freedom among people. During its forty-three-year rule, the Islamic government of Iran has always violated human rights in various ways. This regime has humiliated sexual, religious, political, and other minorities, and suppressed and detained women activists regardless of socio-political pluralism.

Throughout the Islamic regime’s rule, the government has faced waves of dissatisfaction from the people. National protests have resulted from an increasing class divide, systematic government corruption, repeated violations of human rights, and external pressures. According to a 2009 World Economic Forum report, Iran ranked 128 out of 134 countries in terms of gender discrimination.¹https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2009.pdf Hijab became mandatory after the 1978 revolution. A woman who does not observe the Islamic limits of hijab is sentenced to 70 lashes or 60 days in prison in accordance with the Islamic Penal Code. 

The death of Jina (Mahsa) Amini on September 16, 2022, brought the world’s attention to the issue of women in Iran. In Iran and many other countries, Jina’s killing by Iran’s morality police for not regarding hijab according to the regime’s rules sparked widespread protests. Millions of times Jina (Mahsa) Amini’s name was repeated on social networks, and over the last two months, the hashtag #MahsaAmini has broken Twitter’s record for most shares.²https://globalvoices.org/2022/10/13/the-world-must-hear-the-voice-of-iranian-women

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Women’s protests took on new and performative forms as a result of Jina’s emergence as a symbolic “the other” threatening the regime. Based on Butler’s theory, women’s protests in Iran can be considered performative because they question the regime’s legitimacy through bodies appearing in public spaces and repetitive gestures even digitally. Bodies articulating in resistance to violence their “continued existence” and their right to “continue to exist”. ³See Judith Butler: Notes toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2015

Here are some examples of performative forms of women’s protest against the Iranian regime:

• Burning scarves or scarf-burning campaigns as a protest against compulsory hijab. It originated from a protest gathering in Sari⁴An anti-mandatory hijab protest was held on September 20, 2022, by invitation of women activists in the north of Iran., located in the north of Iran, and was repeated in many other cities. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spSTw-zs-AA)

• An ancient Iranian and some other nation’s custom is to remove or cut hair during mourning (Gisoboran), which creates an emotional state of sadness. After the Islamic Revolution, this custom was forgotten in Iran, but after Jina was killed, it became a performative way for women and even men to express their frustration and anger. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zNngyPYK2w)

• School students tear the photo of the leader of the Islamic regime of Iran from their textbooks. (https://tinyurl.com/yv9ammrd)

• The Slogan „women, life, freedom“ (Jin, Jiyan, Azadi) has been repeated extensively. The slogan is associated with Jineology⁵Jineology (Kurdish: Jineolojî) is a form of feminism and of gender equality advocated by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the broader Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) umbrella. and is said to have been coined by Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The slogan marked the political activities of Kurdish women in the 2000s. (https://tinyurl.com/ms7fy822)

• A video of an unidentified girl tying her hair and preparing to face the security forces is one of the protests’ symbols. The act of tying hair is considered a sign of women preparing for an important event in Iranian culture. A large number of young people declared their readiness to confront the regime by repeating this act and posting the video on social media. (https://tinyurl.com/2p9xupzm)

• Honking is another symbol of the protests, with cars continuing to honk on the streets and highways to accompany protesters’ voices with this action. (https://tinyurl.com/44a4nae6)

• Throughout universities and schools, bloody handprints on doors and walls have been used as protest signs to remind students of the regime’s crimes against them. (https://tinyurl.com/53uyhhu5)

• Many athletes refuse to sing the national anthem of the Islamic Republic of Iran and wear black armbands during national and international sports events. In the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Qatar – which has been widely criticized for repeatedly violating human rights and not recognizing sexual minorities – Iranian protesters were prevented from entering the stadiums, and blocking them was a coordinated action with the regime. As a result of this, the players of the Iranian national football team refused to sing the national anthem of the Islamic Republic before the match against England.
  (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-national-anthem-world-cup-england/)

Every day, these forms are developed in a performative way and affect more people. There is no doubt that these protests are the largest, most unified, and most widespread protests in Iran after the Islamic Revolution (1979). Women’s protests against the mandatory hijab can liberate Iranian society, bring down the Islamic regime, and eventually free women, queers, and all minorities. Our duty as advocates of women’s rights, and sexual minorities’ rights as human rights is to support Iranian women, men, and people of all gender who chant in the streets: women, life, freedom.

Dr. Hamed Soleimanzadeh is film philosopher and film critic, currently he is Einstein Junior Fellow at UdK Berlin.
https://fipresci.org/people/hamed-soleimanzadeh