Iran’s female students perform a magnanimous feat, pulling off the veil in response to years of abuse, tyranny and state authoritarianism of exerting control over the bodies of women and girls, which among other things forces them to hide their hair.
This is carried out massively following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by moral police officers and taken to a police compound to be re-educated. In that place he suffers a cardiac arrest and dies three days later in a care center. His relatives say he died as a result of the beatings, which sparked the burning of veils and protests by women around the world who have made the gesture of cutting their hair, as a way to empathize with Iranian women.
This systematic surveillance of the Iranian moral police has the prerogative to indiscriminately detain women and check their clothing, hair and makeup, among others. In the case of the veil, non-use in public spaces is the ultimate offense, and female girls are considered immoral and delinquent.
Structural control monitors women’s bodies. Disobeying or defying the mandate involves the punishment of detention, physical torture and even death. This patriarchal mandate subjects women to be subject to concealing their body, arms, legs and covering their heads.
The inspection of women’s clothing from hegemonic morality operates like modern slavery and radiates in all systems: universities, schools, work. This abusive, discriminatory and improper treatment is degrading and operates in impunity for state laws that impose structural gender violence in the shadow of an institutional cover-up. As a result of these facts, a movement has arisen that rejects the obligatory veil and challenges authority with marches in the streets without a veil or tying them up as a flag.
The social explosion provoked has generated a multiplier effect, where anger and impotence has emerged with courage and has mobilized young women who have dared to challenge the male authoritarianism of the State, which has attacked the fundamental human rights of women and girls by denying them the freedom of a full and just life.
The fact of the death of Mahsa Amini is a milestone and with the motto women, freedom and vinea has begun a path of struggle and demands on patriarchal and clerical leaders to end the hijab.
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