Iranian Women's Movement: Sorrow, Anger And Politics Of Hair

바카라�Ferdowsi

The epic poem 바카라�Shahnameh바카라� written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi in the 10th century, speaks of the moment when, consumed with great grief and anger over the unjust killing of her husband Siyavash by the king of Iran, the bereaved Farangis cuts off her beautiful hair. The shorning of her locks is an expression of sorrow, defiance and mourning. A thousand years later, the women of Iran who have grown up reading the story of Farangis seem to be echoing her violent pain and wrath. They too are cutting off their hair and throwing the locks in the face of an unyielding adversary to grieve an unjust killing.

An Uprising In Iran

The death of Jina Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022 rocked the government with a significant force. She had been arrested by the 바카라�morality police바카라� for incorrectly wearing her hijab. The hijab has long been a bone of contention between the state and the women of Iran where women바카라�s bodies have been systematically politicised as an element of 20th-century modernisation and statecraft. This dynamic reached its zenith with the 1979 revolution during which women바카라�s bodies were deemed political battlegrounds to be fought over and won.

Those who supported Ayatollah Khomeini바카라�s revolution then, however, were left deeply disillusioned and betrayed when the Supreme Leader, after coming to power, brought theocracy instead of democracy and introduced the idea of a mandatory hijab law.

On March 8, 1979, on Women바카라�s Day, thousands of women, including those who had previously marched for the revolution, took to the streets to protest against the imposition. By 1983, however, the law had been passed and all women in Iran had to abide. Article 638 of the 5th book of the Islamic Penal Code in Iran states that women who do not wear a hijab may be imprisoned from ten days to two months, and/or required to pay fines.

바카라�As long as I remember, hair has been a frontline for women in Iran where hijab was vehemently advertised as a pillar of Islam. There was a lot of indoctrination in favour of it from a young age,바카라� says Iranian scholar Tara Mehrabi, who was born in a secular family in Teheran two years after the revolution. She states that Iranian women have struggled to retain autonomy over their hair for decades. The news of Amini바카라�s death following alleged torture was the last straw and thousands of historically oppressed and repressed women once again braved potential torture, incarceration and even death to take to the streets of Iran in protest, demanding more personal freedoms for women.

And they cut off their hair, screaming 바카라�Zan, Zendegi, Azadi바카라� (Women, Life, Freedom) and 바카라�Marg Bar Dictator바카라� (death to the dictator).

바카라�The act of cutting hair became a form of protest and self determination of the body,바카라� says San Francisco-based Iranian artist Mobina Nouri. Like the women were finally telling the regime to 바카라�cut it out바카라�. The powerful image resonated with women across the world and soon, social media and news were swarming with photos and videos of women cutting their hair in solidarity. Not just activists, politicians or celebrities but also ordinary women in their homes, in public spaces, thousands joined the movement. The hashtag #HairForFreedom got millions of hits.

In January this year, Nouri wore a red dress draped in shiny scissors; eyes bandaged, and stood in the heart of San Francisco in the United States. She tied her flowing hair to the spires of a gate, each of the strands bearing the photograph of a protester imprisoned by the Iran government. She invited people to come and cut her hair. 바카라�It was to show solidarity for my sisters and raise awareness about the atrocities taking place in Iran,바카라� she states.

In the days following Amini바카라�s death, the Iranian regime led a harsh crackdown on the women바카라�s movement and arrested protesters en masse. By January, over 19,000 had been arrested or det­ained, four people executed and over 500 civilians killed in clashes with forces. The vituperative response is perhaps a reminder of how history (written largely by men) has treated women바카라�s bodies as sites of political and sexual control.

Of Sex, Religion and Hair

Anthropological and psychoanalytical studies on hair and the inter-relations between sex, religion and the public/private or ritual/religious sphere in the 19th and 20th centuries tended to look at its cultural and psycho-social connotations through a male lens. Be it by equating the not cutting of hair with phallic sexuality or cutting of it with castration anxiety.

In conservative patriarchal societies, the sight of women바카라�s head hair, especially that belonging to an unrelated woman, is believed to trigger 바카라�uncontrollable sexual desires바카라� in men. Stanford University바카라�s Carol Delaney, who researched the sociology and sexuality of hair in Turkey, says this desire stems from the psychoanalytic connection between hair and female sexuality.

바카라�Women바카라�s hair바카라�, writes Delaney in her 1994 paper 바카라�Untangling the Meanings of Hair in Turkish Society바카라�, 바카라�comes to symbolise the physical entanglements by which men are ensnared, and thus must be kept out of sight바카라�.

A majority of both Shia and Sunni Muslim schools of thought hold the consensus that it is obligatory for women to cover their hair when in the presence of men other than close family members. Covering of hair is seen as a way to protect and preserve the beauty and modesty of the woman.

Under cover of religion, Mehrabi contends that mandatory hijab is also used as a tool for governing the gendered and sexualized female bodies, their  behaviour, and policing their mobility in public spaces. With the law of mandatory hijab women's freedom of choice is taken away from them as they are forced to obey. 바카라�Every time a woman steps out into public spaces, the morality police may stop her, asking her to 바카라�cover the hair바카라� 바카라� even if she is already wearing a scarf decently. It doesn바카라�t even matter. This is a tactic used by the regime and the morality police to harass women and constantly remind them that she does not belong in the public sphere, even with the hijab,바카라� she adds.

There are various interpretations of what the Quran says about covering hair. When asked if hijab was mandatory to Islam in the context of the hijab ban debate in Karnataka, scholar and activist Zakia Soman said that the hijab was a patriarchal imposition based on a male interpretation of the Quran. She has nevertheless been fighting for the right of Muslim women in India to wear it. While women in Iran have been fighting the imposition of the hijab, Indian Muslim women are fighting for their right to practice their religion and exercise their physical autonomy and right to education as a minority. 바카라�It is not a question of whether the hijab is patriarchal or not, it is a question of allowing Muslim women autonomy to choose,바카라� says Soman.

India바카라�s anti-hijab ban protests are similar to protests by women in Iran in the late 60s and 70s when the Reza Shah바카라�s regime forcefully tried to remove the veil from women바카라�s heads as part of the 바카라�White Revolution바카라� reforms. The reforms, which were overturned after 1979, included some key developments in gender equality. Eventually, the lack of feminist ground-level consciousness at the time and anger against the Shah regime led to the reforms being rebuked, even by women.

Hair: A Universal Language

The approach of the Western media while covering women바카라�s issues in the Middle East has traditionally looked at issues of the region through a male, post-colonial lens. The University of York researcher Haleh Afsar points out in a 2008 paper how such narratives create myths about the hijab that perpetuate a modern-day form of Orientalism and Islamophobia that objectifies the women who cover their hair and otherises them as oppressed and even exotic or dangerous. The successive portrayal of the women바카라�s movements in the Middle East by Western media reflects these post-colonial attitudes and global north-south tensions.

The stories of Iranian women are nevertheless finding their way out, be it through their art, or through social media. By cutting off their hair, they are speaking in an organic language that is universal because controlling women바카라�s hair as a means to control women바카라�s sexuality and political agency is not limited to Iran or Islam.

Hair is an intrinsic part of women바카라�s public and private life and represents the intersections of public expression and private motivation. Social anthropologists have also pointed out the symbolic use of sexuality (embodied by the hair) for religious or ritual purposes. In his 1958 paper 바카라�Magic Hair바카라�, Edmund Leach talks about hair as the link between 바카라�public, social ritual바카라� and 바카라�private, personal meaning바카라�.  Covering the hair has been a part of Orthodox Judaism since the 15th century. Among orthodox Hassidic Jews, women are not allowed to show their real hair to anyone after their marriage and are expected to cut it off and wear wigs or scarves for the rest of their lives to show compliance toward the traditional rules of propriety.

According to The Philadelphia Church of God website, the Bible God views women who cut their hair short like men 바카라�might as well be shorn (shaved) to symbolise a fallen woman바카라�. The dissonance between Christian redemption and women바카라�s sexuality was perhaps best captured by Christina Rossetti바카라�s 1862 poem 바카라�Goblin Market바카라� in which the golden hair of the female protagonists becomes a metaphor for chastised female purity, sexualisation and male gaze.

Women바카라�s hair has also been used as a ritual tool in Hinduism where long, luxurious hair symbolises fertility and marriage while the heads of widows, until recently, were tonsured to mark her departure from the life of sexuality following the husband바카라�s death.

Hair is connected to communities and regions, not just through the customs that surround it but even the texture, colour and the politics of materiality of the hair itself. It is a marker of ethnic and racial identity and the learnings from the Black feminist movements have highlighted how the texture and volume of their hair has been used to discriminate against them. In Iran, where ethnic minorities make up a mass of the population, the hijab has also been a tool to erase ethnic differences and distinctions by covering up the differences in hair texture. The hijab law also replaced the traditional headgears of ethnic minority women that represented their community and cultural identity in an attempt to subsume all ethnic groups under the umbrella of a united, strong, Shia Muslim nation.

바카라�The law doesn바카라�t allow women to be in public spaces bare-headed. At the same time cutting it short is also considered 바카라�unwomanly바카라� and even frowned upon by some religious figures if the aim is to look like a "man". This is one of the reason cutting your hair in public spaces become political. It is as if women are resisting patriarchal gender politics and its ideals of womanhood and nationhood, reclaiming their bodies and the control over it," Mehrabi, who teaches gender theory at Karlstad University, states.

The HairForFreedom campaign also shares the same universe of other movements by women, especially women of colour, against the imposition of Eurocentric beauty standards. Be it the feminist Afro that became a hit during the Black Panther era in the US or Black women바카라�s refusal to straighten or 바카라�tame바카라� their hair for job interviews today. In one of her self-portraits drawn just a month after her divorce from her husband, surrealist feminist Freida Kahlo painted herself with cropped hair and wearing an androgynous suit. She held in her hands a scissor with locks of her hair strewn around, with the lyrics of a Mexican song:  바카라�Look, if I loved you it was because of your hair. Now that you are without hair, I don바카라�t love you anymore바카라�. Was Kahlo mourning Rivera? Or announcing her independence, a rebirth from the shadows of his personality? Perhaps it was a bit of both, of sorrow and anger. Much like the women in Iran who are cutting their hair in both, seeking perhaps to metaphorically be reborn.

(This appeared in the print as "Iran's Sorrow, Anger And Politics Of Hair")