What happened in Iran in 2022 was not spontaneous but rather the result of 44 years of women fighting for their rights, although not all in a radical manner. For example, turning to clerics on the issue of child protection. Women should not fight for Islamic child protection, but for a woman’s right to her child, because a child does not belong solely to the man. Issues such as honour killings, child marriage, women’s right to travel, as well as the right to work, abortion bans, domestic violence, inheritance and divorce rights, and high female unemployment, should also be included. The hijab was another issue. The murder of Mahsa/Jina Amini was a turning point that prompted the oppressed to rise up. According to the ruling system, women should return to their main role, which is household duties and having children. All these issues stem from the perspective of those in power on the matter of women and gender. Unfortunately, there was no prior preparation for this. Neither were the women themselves ready, nor was society. Therefore, the first available prepared slogan, the Kurdish women’s slogan “Woman_Life_Freedom”, was used in Iranian Kurdistan and spread nationwide. This slogan was able to spark a movement that brought not only women but also men back into the fight. However, this movement should not be confined to this slogan and had to also address all the aforementioned women’s issues as well as general social problems such as rising costs, inflation, health insurance, the education system, etc., as these too were women’s issues.
Unfortunately, their limitation was due to the fact that some quickly arrived, circumvented this slogan and raised the issue of the fall of the regime, meaning they did not allow it to become clear what the women were taking to the streets for, what they wanted to destroy and what they wanted to replace it with. Consequently, it did not become clear what the position of women in society is. What do they mean by life, where do they want to return to? Is it just about not wearing a headscarf, or is it about achieving a life in which women and everyone are free in all areas, live in prosperity and are treated justly as human beings?
Slogans introduced into the women’s movement by forces outside it caused the movement not to take the path it should have. These were mostly monarchist forces who, after the fall of the Shah’s regime, had spent 40 years concerned only with their private lives. Suddenly, in the Mahsa movement, they thought of revolution. They did not allow the active force of the movement, which was fighting and even risking its life, to grow and develop.
Aside from the lack of readiness of the women’s movement and society, there was the weakness of the working class in Iran, part of which consisted of female workers; it was not where it should have been, it could not carry them from the streets into the centres of production and prevent forces, many of whom were still young, from recklessly plunging into the line of fire of the counter-revolution of the ruling capitalism and lead the movement safely to victory, although it could create the atmosphere that still lives.
Farideh Sabeti
