Transcript | A Feminist Revolution in Iran
[00:00:00] DR. CLAUDIA YAGHOOBI: It started with women's causes, and men are also fighting for women's causes. And this is for the first time in the history of Iran that women's cause, which is the female body, is at the center of everyone's.
So, there you go with the feminist revolution.
[UNLADYLIKE THEME SONG]
[00:00:52] CRISTEN: This is Unladylike. I'm Cristen. I first heard about the feminist revolution happening in Iran thanks to one of y'all in the Unladylike Instagram comments.
It was Friday, September 16th. I had posted a GIF of a little girl giving a middle finger with a caption of like, who, what can fuck right off from this week?
Yeah, very classy, classy content, I know.
@youlooksowicked was the first to comment and they said, “Iran's morality police.” I didn't know exactly what they were referring to. So I Googled, and that's how I learned the name Gina Mahsa Amini.
NEWS CLIP: It all started with the death of Mahsa Amini, arrested by the morality police in Tehran for wearing her hijab loosely.
Multiple sources said she was beaten in a police truck while in custody. The state released CCTV footage claiming no violence occurred and she collapsed from a heart attack.
The news sparked fury. At her funeral, women ripped their headscarves off in solidarity with restrictions on reporting on the ground.
Videos shared online are vital evidence in understanding how things are unfolding.
The BBC and independent media are not allowed to report from Iran.
[00:02:28] CRISTEN: Now, one important note about Mahsa’s first name. So Kurds are an ethnic minority in Iran, and the state regime does not legally recognize Kurdish first names. So Mahsa is her state sanctioned first name, but her Kurdish name, the one she was born with, was Gina.
On social media, all of these videos and images were coming out of Iran. There are photos of schoolgirls in uniform, their heads are uncovered, and they're all giving the middle finger to a classroom portrait of the Ayatollah.
Like, I've seen cell phone videos of older veiled women who are also going toe to toe with morality police to allow demonstrators to escape to safety.
And the more I saw, the more I wanted to know what it all might mean. And the short answer is it's complicated. Like, it would be impossible to dissect all of the layers at stake here in a single podcast episode, but I knew I needed some sort of expert unladylike perspective to start.
I ran across Professor Claudia Yaghoobi at UNC Chapel Hill, and she jumped out to me because of something she said in a recent campus interview about the protests in Iran. She stressed, and I quote, “It is crucial to understand the multilayered nuances to avoid reductionism.”
And I said to myself, Dr. Yaghoobi, you are speaking my language.
[AUDIO STING]
[00:04:20] DR. CLAUDIA YAGHOOBI: Hi, I'm Claudia Yaghoobi, or as we say in Persian, Claudia Yaghoubi. I'm a Roshan Associate Professor in Persian Studies at UNC Chapel Hill. I'm also the Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Center at UNC Chapel Hill.
I am Iranian-Armenian. Which means that in Iran, I was part of the minoritized population, Christian population. So I lived under, you know, Islamic Republic in Iran, in a Muslim majority country on the margins of the society. And that shaped who I am today and what I fight for, which is for the rights of all minoritized people, populations and those who have been pushed into the margins and fringes of society.
[00:05:17] CRISTEN: This is a very basic question, but what, what would you call what has been happening in Iran? Like I've seen it described as a feminist revolution. A women-led counterrevolution protest. Like, how would you describe it?
[00:05:34] DR. CLAUDIA YAGHOOBI: There was so many debates whether or not we should call this a revolution, and the first petition that I know of that came out in solidarity called it a feminist revolution. I talked to the young women who had written the petition, and I asked them what the reason was behind the choice.
And they told me that they are in touch with women in Iran who are fighting on the ground, and they are calling it a feminist revolution. So who are we in the diaspora to decide what it should be called?
If they want to call it a feminist revolution, I'm going to call it a feminist revolution. And it is different from the traditional understanding of what we know as like defined as a revolution in so many different ways, and the first one is that there is no leader.
And what I would like to say is just listen to the young people in Iran. What do they want? And do that.
[00:06:45] CRISTEN: And then the question becomes, then what, what is the revolution for?
[00:06:53] DR. CLAUDIA YAGHOOBI: Again, another thorny topic. I'm trying to listen very carefully to what they are demanding and, um, they want to be done with this regime. That's all they want.
There is no demand for changing the laws of veiling. There is no demand about any reforms. There is no demand about having a dialogue with the government. They don't want that. They have done all of those and they have not seen any results.
And now they just want them gone.
[00:07:36] CRISTEN: Can you talk a little bit more then about the role then of veiling and hijabs as the catalyst for this much bigger revolution that's happening?
[00:07:53] DR. CLAUDIA YAGHOOBI: You know, when I teach in my classes and when we focus on the hijab, students always ask, why is this hijab so important?
I think in the West, our students understand the hijab is in the context of religion, in the context of Islam, but hijab is more than just an item of clothing, which is related to Islam.
Hijab has been historically manipulated by all governments in Iran, either for or against, either veiling or unveiling. So there has been so much manipulation of hijab laws to control the female body.
I mean, look at all governments, look at the U.S. Right now we have the elections and, you know, abortion rights is on the table.
Why is the female body so important? Why are politicians always governments always mapping out their power on the female body? Why is there this fascination, but at the same time, fear of the female body? Because the female body has that power to take control back, and because of that, the female body has to be controlled, policed and suppressed in Iran.
It has been through, you know, the dress code and of course, segregation of the genders, you know, in, in public spaces, the legal laws of, you know, marriage and divorce and child custody. And because of that, when the 1979 revolution happened, women actually wore the hijab to fight for the regime back then to end it.
And that was because it was in response to the imperial ideas or the westernized image of the Iranian woman that had been produced over the years. But right after, when the Ayatollah Khomeini made the hijab laws and hijab, you know, mandatory in all places, they came out, they demonstrated on March 8, 1979, against the mandatory, uh, nature of the hijab.
Yesterday's demonstration was the nearest thing to an anti Khomeini rally yet. The imposition of Islamic law here has started with an order to women to cover their heads in government offices. And right then, feminists, um, of the time and allies of these feminists said that, oh, hijab is the least of our concern right now. We have more important things to address at this point, trying to recover after years of secular dictatorship.
Now our youth have learned their lesson. It is time for everything now. And at this point, we are talking about. are trans rights, queer rights, ethnic minority rights, religious minority rights. This is time for everyone to talk about their rights and their freedom as well.
So this revolution is different because we are no longer saying this is not time for talking about this particular thing or that particular thing. But yes, even though there's uprisings and protests started with the hijab, it's not just about the item of clothing.
I mean, one of the most outspoken women who actually came out and condemned the brutality of the government because of veiling in Iran is a veiled woman. She posted her videos on social media and condemned the brutality and the violence and the killing of Gina Amini, and she was arrested.
There are so many clips that are coming out of Iran, hand in hand, with unveiled women, walking on the streets, fighting for the same right, the right to choose. So at this point, it's not about the veil. It's about the larger picture of women's rights and also human rights.
When they are protesting, they say death to dictatorship.
[00:12:33] CRISTEN: How would you compare Iranian women's struggle for bodily autonomy and rights before and after the Islamic Revolution?
[00:12:48] DR. CLAUDIA YAGHOOBI: The resistance for women in the larger sense, it's, it's nothing new. It's always been there.
And the fight about a fight for 170 years at this point, either to veil or to unveil. And in Qajar era, which dates between 1789 to 1925, the veil was all actually worn by the royal family and the elites of the society, and it was seen as a social class marker. And the working class, who was working in the farms, it was not pragmatic for them to wear the veil when they were at work. So they were not veiled.
And then after the Qajar era, when we come to the Pahlavi era, which is 1925 to 1979, we have this westernized or quote unquote “modernized democracy” or “secular democracy” in the country. And in 1936, Reza Shah, the monarch of the time, to produce a very secular and westernized image of the country, brings in the Western dress code and wants all women and men to comply with this dress code, and he begins this entire campaign of unveiling women.
Let's say, if there is a religious woman who is wearing the veil because of their faith at this time in the public so they would be publicly unveiled and they could have been arrested and imprisoned.
So this created a problem because this group of women were alienated from the society. They were isolated. And then we have the revolution and right after the Islamic Republic and of course the compulsory veiling decree of Ayatollah Khomeini. At the time, Ayatollah Khomeini basically did not enforce the law of compulsory veiling, but throughout months, we see that it was implemented and enforced gradually.
And this time around, because the enforcement of Mandatory veiling in workplaces, in the public, this alienated the group of women who did not want to wear the veil in the public.
In 1993, Homa Darabi, a pediatric specialist and psychologist, but also a university professor and a very politically active dissident of the Islamic Republic and the government, self immolated in a very public and crowded square in Tehran because at the workplace as a university professor, she had been expelled because of improperly veiling, and all her life she had fought for women's bodily autonomy and also for everyone's freedom and for democracy. But this was basically her last and maybe her tragic reclaiming of her, you know, power and her control over her body.
[AD BREAK]
[00:16:45] CRISTEN: We're back. And when we left off, Dr. Claudia Yagoubi had contextualized 170 years of struggle represented in this current feminist revolution in Iran. And now it's time to get a little bit more into what exactly happened two months ago to ignite it.
[00:17:09] DR. CLAUDIA YAGHOOBI: In September, you know, protests broke out in Iran after across the country after images of this young woman, 22 year old Gina Mahsa Amini, um, who was unconscious in on the hospital bed and she was pronounced dead after a couple of days because she was allegedly improperly veiled.
And I say allegedly because the, you know, laws and regulations about veiling is kind of random and who decides which kind of veiling is proper or improper. And she was arrested and then beaten by the police, the morality guard, and she was dead a few days later.
And we only know about that because this brave journalist, Niloufar Hamedi, who was arrested and in prison right there. Now, since then, she took pictures and posted publicly. So that's why we all know about this.
And there are so many of those instances that go unnoticed. Gina Amini was a Kurdish woman from Saqqez and she was on vacation with her family in Tehran. And that's when this happened. And after that, her family decided consciously that this would have consequences.
They decided to have a public funeral. During the funeral, women started taking off their veils and cutting their hair and burning their hijabs. And the slogan they started using was zan zendegi azadi, which has this historical context of years and years of resistance and activism on Kurdish peoples and Kurdish women's activism.
And Zan zendegi azadi is translated as jin jiyan azadi or woman, life, freedom.
So after this moment across the country and also in diaspora, women started taking off their hijab and burning their hijab and cutting their hair in solidarity. And this was actually the week that I went in and I shaved my hair in solidarity as well.
[00:19:47] CRISTEN: How did it feel when you were shaving your head?
[00:19:48] DR. CLAUDIA YAGHOOBI: It was liberating because I have also lived under the same government. I have also been stopped by morality patrol.
It's liberating to take control over our female body and taking the control back. about our choices. But in being in diaspora and not knowing how I can help my sisters inside Iran, you feel hopeless, you feel helpless. Every day they wake up to more murders and more killings and more arrests.
So this was only a very small step towards feeling like I'm doing something at least.
Iranian people are very creative. There is so many protest art. There are so many beautiful artistic works, performances, paintings, graphic art that is coming out, and music that is coming out of this moment, and some of them have become the slogans, and some of them have become the anthem of this protest and the revolution. Those are also going viral on social media and using those as mediums for us to raise awareness amongst our non Iranian friends and audiences.
[00:21:24] GHAZAL FOROUTAN: I think I've never seen this many Iranian artists reacting to something. You know, I have seen it here and there, but I think design activism or art as a protest sign really got its meaning back in Iran. We're in a time that we're seeing a revolution happening that started with women, and the slogan is Women, Life, Freedom, which I think it's, I get goosebumps every time I talk about it.
[00:22:00] CRISTEN: That's Ghazal Foroutan. She was featured in a piece in The Guardian about exactly what Dr. Yaghoobi and she were just referencing this outpouring of protest art that Ghazal is very much a part of as both an artist and an educator.
In fact, y'all, her master's thesis was all about using design as a form of activism and protest against compulsory hijab. I mean, hello, how could I not talk to her?
[00:22:33] GHAZAL FOROUTAN: I mean, I've been always doing artwork for women's rights. That's my main research. That's what I do. And when this happened, I started also, uh, portraying, um, this Women, Life, Freedom in an artwork that I ended up doing, which is the famous Rosie poster. That poster is not that famous let's say, like in the Middle East, but it's more well known here in the West.
And I thought my audience right now, here are the Western people. So let's use something that they're familiar with. They know Rosie. And yes, it was first used for something else. And then I thought, okay, it's our time. We're going to have our Rosie.
And so our Rosie's wearing the same blue outfit. But, uh, she's holding her white scarf as a symbol of peace, and it's her scarves. She took it off, um, and she has a little tattoo that is saying, no to compulsory hijab. And we got Women, Life, Freedom as the bubble on top of her head.
She has thicker eyebrows and black hair just as a symbol of, you know, being Iranian. She's also wearing a mask because it keeps everyone anonymous, and that's what we want to do. We keep them safe. You stay anonymous, you stay safe.
And then, um, I got, God knows, more than thousands of people reach out to me or checked out the post to ask for the file.
So I shared the file immediately with everyone and was like, just print it. Use it any way you want. Let's do this. Let's bring awareness.
And people from all over the world sent me photos. I'm seeing London or I'm seeing Toronto, Berlin, people from Turkey, Switzerland, Australia, everywhere. And, um, I know I can't be there to help Iranian people right now. I can't help my women there, but this is, I think, my way of being with them.
[00:24:47] CRISTEN: What did hijab mean to you growing up in Iran?
[00:24:50] GHAZAL FOROUTAN: So growing up, it was never something that I wanted to follow willingly, and it was just something that we followed as a rule, as a law, and as a part of our daily lives without a question.
As a kid, we just wore it to school. You wear it outside. When we were born, that's where, that's what the rules were, so we never saw how it was before the revolution. It never occurred to us to question it at that age.
But as I grow older and I studied my MFA in graphic design, because you do a lot of research and design work at the same time, I realized one of the things that I really believe in and is really important for me is the freedom of choice and the freedom for women, especially Iranian women, growing up in that atmosphere and having to follow something that I didn't want to follow myself.
And knowing a lot of people that felt the same way. As I did, I thought this is one of the things that can be the focus point for my thesis research and getting to know design activism at the same time, knowing that I can use my tools and my skills and design and art, to use art as a protest, right? To use the art as a tool to show that to express your beliefs and what you really stand for.
[00:26:28] CRISTEN: I am curious in your experience, how strictly enforced compulsory hijab was in public. Did you feel aware of needing to, you know, be kind of meeting dress code when you left the house?
[00:26:46] GHAZAL FOROUTAN: Yes. Yes. You need to follow them. So if we're going to our restaurant or outside with our friends, I always try to dress loosely, you know, you try to express yourself and in the colors that you choose and how you wear them, you try to follow fashion trends and in a specific in our way.
So, you know, because of social media, peer pressure, you know, the teenagers, young people, you want to follow the trends, but we did it in our own way, you know, it wasn't as scary as it might be portrayed on the news before, but, um, it got a little bit more stressful when we see morality police on the street because they are there to pick on you and either take you in.
You go in, you write something, sign it that, you know, I'll wear it better next time, right? And they let you go. So just that was a little stressful to face them or try to avoid them in specific streets so they can't see you and catch you. But going to school, I think, was also another stress because when you're entering your school, they will check how you're dressed.
And that was something that every morning before going to class you had to experience. Is she going to pick on me today? Is she going to see that this doesn't have a button?
[00:28:17] CRISTEN: The guys that you were friends with, like, were they able to navigate public spaces a little more freely, would you say?
[00:28:27] GHAZAL FOROUTAN: Oh, of course. Yes. Um, I think especially when it comes to immigration, you might see a lot of the women wanting to immigrate and leave because they, they want their freedom. They want to live somewhere that they're freer, right?
But if you ask boys the same question, it might not come up with all of them because they don't feel that much pressure. They're still not as, not as free as they should, but they're definitely freer than women. Um, but you asked the same question from a lot of girls and you might hear a different story.
[00:29:36] CRISTEN: When did you move to the US and, and why? Was it, was it for, for your masters?
[00:29:43] GHAZAL FOROUTAN: Yeah. I, um, really wanted to do my master's in graphic design. I thought that, um, I was at a point that I wasn't making enough progress and I was, I kind of learned all I wanted to out of Iran. And I thought, okay, it's time for me to learn more, explore more. And I'm young. So I moved here in 2018.
[00:30:09] CRISTEN: How did it feel different living without compulsory hijab?
[00:30:15] GHAZAL FOROUTAN: I think at first, even, um, you know, you kind of want to dress more modestly and you think, okay, cause you're so used to that pressure that I have to be dressed this specific way. At first, when I was leaving the house, I kept thinking I forgot something, or I forgot something to wear.
But then after a while, I kind of got used to it. And the fact that, you know, no one would really look at you or care about what you're wearing or how you're wearing it, the freedom of expression, the freedom of choice is, yeah, it's something that, that I experienced for the first time and, um, I got used to it pretty fast.
I thought to myself, this is it. That's, that's one of the reasons you moved, right? You're getting your freedom. Yeah. And I felt like it was in my blood, right? It kind of, it came naturally.
[AD BREAK]
[00:31:22] CRISTEN: As a young woman, I feel like you were part of this generation that is leading this revolution. Why do you think that it is young women who are leading this?
[00:31:41] GHAZAL FOROUTAN: I think, especially with our gen Z and social media being a part of our daily lives now, everyone's so much more aware of their rights. And when, when you feel like you're not getting your basic rights, that's, that's when you're gonna object, right? That's when you're going to ask for it.
And I think our Gen Z are so aware of their rights. They know what they want and they ask for it and they demand it as people, not only as women, as people. We're all human beings. We need, we want our rights. And I think, um, just, you know, they're, they, and they're not as scared.
I'm at the end of the millennial generation, so I think growing up, they kind of, they try to scare you from these things and you grow up with a lot of limitations. But nowadays, with everything that's been happening, one is just more aware.
[00:32:50] CRISTEN: Well, what has it felt like to, to see women and girls in the streets, also in schools who are protesting and also obviously risking violence? You know, a number of them have been killed. Like, what has it been like for you to bear witness to all of this from afar?
[00:33:19] GHAZAL FOROUTAN: It's, it's amazing how brave they are. And I feel like if me and my friends and people I grew up with, if we were at schools right now in Iran, we would probably do the same thing.
We're, we all live once, right? And we have the right as human beings to, you know, live freely with the freedom of choice.
Something that's also being covered in all these protests are a lot of our LGBTQ community that needed help that needed, you know, their, their freedom. And I think this is also giving them a chance to be free. And I think that, that's, that's beautiful.
[00:34:11] CRISTEN: Are you in touch with family and friends who are still in Iran?
[00:34:16] GHAZAL FOROUTAN: Yes, constantly. I have a group chat with my high school friends, and a lot of them are in Iran, and we just keep checking on each other so everyone just answers in the group. So we make sure everyone's there and everyone's safe and everyone's okay. No one's been shot, you know, so these are scary times.
[00:34:36] CRISTEN: Have any friends of yours been out in the protests, active in the protests as well?
[00:34:44] GHAZAL FOROUTAN: Yes, I think everyone's involved. You can't say that no, someone is not involved. Even if one person is walking without the scarf in Iran right now, that's them being involved. And it's not even going to the protest you're not doing something. You're just going to the grocery to buy groceries and not wearing your scarf, that's it. And you're part of this.
[00:35:11] CRISTEN: How has it felt making this art and just creating in the past, you know, roughly like two months now, has it felt different at all?
[00:35:25] GHAZAL FOROUTAN: When the idea of this poster came to me and I started it and I did it, it was, I did everything in three days.
So I put aside everything else I was doing and only focused on this so I can just get it done. I think now it's the matter of speed. Like you gotta be fast. We never know what happens tomorrow when I wake up, so I'm constantly checking my phone when I go to sleep and when I wake up, so if I can, I know if there's any news that I have to be aware of.
I have to be faster. I have to try to bring more awareness to it. What can I do to help the protest? What posters can I do to help this?
And knowing that I have more audience now that everyone cares about this like before, it was just me doing my thesis. Yes, I'm a woman who was not happy with the laws and the limitations she had and I I never thought like every other news outlet around the world, and everyone's talking about compulsory hijab right now.
I just did it as as a protest art for myself. It, it, it feels different. It feels, definitely feels different knowing that it will actually be reflected in a way that it should have been in the first place.
[00:36:52] CRISTEN: Ghazal would love for y'all to share, download, and generally have at her rosy design. You can see it on our Instagram @ghazalforoutan, and there's a PDF link in the bio and truly go, go look. at her work. I mean, she made the risograph Rosie, but there are also stickers, there's a sweatshirt, and she is so incredibly talented.
Okay, here's Dr. Claudia Yaghoobi to close us out.
CRISTEN: Well, I have just one last question for you that we ask all of our guests. What is the most unladylike thing about you?
[00:37:34] DR. CLAUDIA YAGHOOBI: Many people tell me you're so courageous to shave your hair. And what if it didn't look good on you? And I feel like that's, you know, absolutely ridiculous because those who are fighting inside Iran are the courageous to me. Shaving my head is nothing and, and worrying about my beauty? I do not care about that.
Taking back control over our bodies, our bodily autonomy, is probably the most unladylike thing that we can do today because that means we are not conforming to what society is prescribing for us.
[AUDIO STING]
[00:38:34] CRISTEN: Thank you so much to Dr. Claudia Yaghoobi and Ghazal Foroutan. And thank you, Iranian unladies. I see you, I support you and I hope for your safety.
You can send voice memos and emails to hello@unladylike.co or DM them on Instagram. Instagram @unladylikemedia. You can also follow Unladylike on TikTok and Twitter @unladylikemedia.
It's all @unladylikemedia, so easy to remember, right?
For weekly bonus episodes, full-length guest interviews, and a special Women and Conspiracy Theories series–whoa, that rhymes–join the Patreon for just $5 a month. Go to patreon.com/unladylike media.
Unladylike is a Starburns Audio production, written and executive produced by me, Cristen Conger. Tara Brockwell is our senior producer. Katherine Calligori is our associate producer. Engineering and post production is by Ali Nikou. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit Mae Cohen, and Sarah Tudzen.
Jin jiyan azadi.
Zan zendegi azadi.
Woman, life, freedom.
