Women DON'T  want to wear it, that's why they are protesting - and get beaten, even killed.

Frank wrote on Oct 7^th, 2022 at 10:28am:


do you think maybe thats because they are living in a country that forces them to wear it by law? Removing the law won't stop some Iranian women from continuing to wear it. Its the lack of choice they object to.

Bit different situation in Australia wouldn't you agree?

freediver wrote on Oct 6^th, 2022 at 8:54pm:


Such coercion wouldn't occur in a vacuum. If there are grown women who are physically being forced to wear the hijab, then I'd expect there to be far worse things going on that should be dealt with first. We call it domestic abuse, and yes I absolutely stand up for the right of women to not be subjected to that. Mostly though, 'coercion' is probably on the same scale as me being 'coerced' by my community to wear pants. Strictly speaking I don't have agency either in that respect, but it becomes so ingrained that the line between coercion and happily doing it voluntarily becomes very blury. And of couse you have to consider the norms and expectations individual families and particular communities have on their members. All of us have all sorts of "coercions" imposed on us by our families and communities - but mostly we don't feign outrage about them and scream about freedom and rights.

Generally though, in our free society, a woman who is not in a domestic abuse situation (that absolutely should be dealt with), a woman should be considered as having as much agency in what she wears as any of us do.

But what this is really about is the unfair standards and expectations Frank and ilk are imposing on women. They somehow know whats best for them - if they wear the hijab, then by default, there is something wrong with them. They "degrade themselves", as Frank assures us. The fact that they always seem to hone in on outward, visible symbols like the hijab to pass judgement, and not even consider the personality, attitudes or beliefs of the actual person wearing it - says it all.

With their hands linked together, Iranian women of every age and background have taken to the streets and online to spread revolution.

Their protests were sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini who was killed in custody after being arrested by Tehran's morality police.

I am watching it unfold from the relative safety of Australia, but I know what it's like to be one of them.

When I go online, I see the backdrop to my childhood, the streets of Iran, broken and bleeding. I see the same horrors that caused me to flee Iran repeated anew.

Although I am in another country, my breath is ragged even though this time there is no tear gas to hurt me. I am imagining my fellow protesters holding a napkin drenched in vinegar over my mouth to help me breathe after being gassed and beaten.

My generation grew up forced to repeat dehumanising chants like, "The blood in our veins is a gift to our leader" or "God protect Khomeini's movement, reduce from our lives and add to his life" every day at school. It ruined so many childhoods.

But the product of these 43 years of brainwashing is a global shout of "Woman, Life, Freedom": a revolutionary manifesto that stands for intersectionality, for the right to life and humanity, and demands the distortion of the Islamic Republic as a terrorist regime.

Now schoolgirls are burning pictures of the supreme leader taken from their books, kicking out a senior education ministry official from their school in Karaj and removing their mandatory hijabs.


Memories are like a physical pain
I was a teacher in Tehran at a prestigious university, advocating for women and children on death row and directing an art therapy project in an orphanage, but I fled persecution with nothing but my daughter Minerva and a bag in 2010.

My brother, too, left Tehran. I still can't forget the sound of his screams when the Islamists dragged him to the ground, into a van and then to their jail when he was a young photojournalist.

When he was released, his body had been crushed by their flogging, his assets confiscated or frozen.

Now he's based in London and works for the BBC.

I can't forget the teenage dissidents who chose to end their life rather than buckle beneath the jackboot of the regime.

I can't forget the voices of my students and classmates that scar the land like shrapnel.

I can't forget the sound of kissing was banned, how love, happiness and dancing were forbidden.

Each memory slams into me with physical pain. Worse still, these crimes are being repeated, re-traumatising Iran and the Iranian diaspora.

Many Iranians see no future under the regime except the possibility of more surveillance, disadvantage, discrimination, and poverty.

Often the unknown frightens us. But for Iranian people, state violence is infused in their daily life and is not an unfamiliar component. Their courage is the antidote to the dreadful desperation to survive.

My people have come to realise that for more than 43 years, they have been living on death row, on a gradual death, where the imagination of any prosperity and freedom was impossible

Memories of growing up in Iran keep flooding back to me.

From the age of six or seven, we were forced to live invisibly.

I remember the veiled body of our childhoods and being forced to go to school wearing only four regulation colours: black, brown, grey, and navy.

Since the Shia Islamists seized power in 1979 there have been many protests against the compulsory hijab.

more here- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-09/iran-protest-women-standing-up-for-rights...

Frank wrote on Oct 7^th, 2022 at 11:17am:


Of course. No individual is free from the pressures their respective societies bears down on them. Unfortunately, such pressures are disproportionately more on women - always have, since the dawn of mankind. The fact that you are seemingly incapable of understanding that your condescending armchair lectures about women "degrading themselves" is an example of that very pressure  - is the whole problem here.

FD seems to think that rescuing poor oppressed women from the evils of hijab is the answer - but its not. Its just yet another bloke telling women whats best for them. Thats actually the first thing we need to stamp out if we trully want to help women with their freedom and rights - stop lecturing them about what we think is best for them.