Iranian women in Tehran before and after the Islamic Revolution

The first to come under scrutiny is the way women dressed and covered their hair – the old Shah, in the 1930s, banned the headscarf and ordered the police to remove it even by force. But in the early 1980s, new Islamic authorities imposed a mandatory dress code requiring all women to wear the hijab.

Women studied

While many women were already attending higher education at the time of the revolution, the following years saw a significant increase in the number of women attending university. This was partly because the authorities were able to persuade conservative families living in rural areas to allow their daughters to study away from home.

“They tried to stop women from going to university, but there was such a backlash that they had to let them back in,” says Baroness Haleh Afshar, professor of women’s studies at York University, who grew up in Iran in the 1960s.

“Many educated people left Iran and the authorities realized that in order to run the country they had to educate both men and women.”

The women were shopping

Before the revolution, the hijab was already widespread, but many women also chose to wear Western-style clothing, such as skinny jeans, miniskirts and short-sleeved tops. “Shoes haven’t changed – and the passion for shoes is in all of us! Women in Iran are no different from women around the world, and going shopping is just a means for women to escape from everyday stress,” explained Professor Afshar, among others.

They had picnics on Fridays

Families and friends used to gather on Fridays, which are weekend days in Iran. “Picnics are an important part of Iranian culture and are very popular among the middle classes. This has not changed since the revolution. The difference is that, today, men and women sitting together are much more self-aware and show more restraint in their interactions,” continues Professor Afshar.

They were going to the hairdresser

“This is a scene you would no longer expect to see in Iran – but even after the Islamic Revolution, the salons continued to exist,” explains Professor Afshar. “Today you wouldn’t see a single man inside the salons – and women would make sure to cover their hair as soon as they walked out the door. Some people may also operate secret salons in their homes where men and women can mingle.’

They were walking down the street on a calm day

“You can’t stop women walking down the streets of Iran, but under no circumstances with obvious make-up and earrings,” observes Professor Afshar. “There is this sense of enforced ‘decency’ in Iran – so today women walking down the streets are likely to wear a knee-length coat and a headscarf.”

They were demonstrating against the hijab in 1979

Shortly after taking power, Iran’s new supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered that all women must wear the veil – regardless of religion or nationality. On March 8 – International Women’s Day – thousands of women from all walks of life gathered to protest the law.

And today, women defy repression and set “fire” in Iranian society. The unjust death of 22-year-old Mahsha Amini became the “spark” for an unprecedented explosion of the women’s movement in a country with suffocating legislation, controls and heavy repression.

The demonstrations that broke out on the occasion of the death of the young lady a few days after her arrest, are now taking place at a nationwide level, despite the harsh reaction of the regime and fears of bloodshed.

*With data from bbc.com