Authoritarian regimes rely on patriarchal structures to consolidate their power. In Iran, this partnership serves to control women’s bodies.

Through both strict dress laws — such as the compulsory veiling law — and punitive sanctions, women are shaped into “body objects,” showcases of propaganda that reinforce the regime’s moral and political authority.

Iranian women have always engaged in acts of resistance to this appropriation of their bodies. In Iran today, their struggle has evolved into using acts of disobedience to reclaim their oppressed bodies as tools of emancipation. Their bodies become political statements that symbolize their relentless quest for freedom and dignity, even at the cost of their lives.

I’m an Iranian-Canadian sociologist and doctoral candidate in feminist and gender studies at the University of Ottawa. My research focuses on how Iranian women have resisted discriminatory laws since the 1979 revolution. As a feminist activist and researcher, I am particularly interested in women’s movements in Iran. These movements, which are fighting gender apartheid in the name of emancipation and equality, have become sources of inspiration to feminism on the whole.

Ahou Daryaei, a French-language student at Tehran’s Azad University, has become a recent symbol of this struggle. Attacked by the morality police for wearing clothing deemed to be “inappropriate,” she responded with a radical act: she removed her clothes — which were apparently torn — and stood up, vulnerable, yet powerful.

In an instant, her body became a message, a challenge to the oppressive authority of the regime. This image, shared on social networks, inspired a wave of national and international solidarity, demonstrating the immediate and universal impact of these performances of bodily........

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