Want to Support Iranian Women? Let Your Hair Down.
The best way to stand in solidarity with those who fight for their freedom is to exercise our own.
The protests in Iran seem to be winding down — for now. Considering that the country’s economy is in shambles and society in disarray, and a similar wave of protests spread through Iranian cities eight years ago, we should expect discontent to continue engulfing the country with some regularity.
That during the protests some women dared to take off their hated headgear and confront the police is something of particular interest to me. When religious police deem a woman to be insufficiently covered, they punish the “modesty” “offender” in ways that are both cruel and unusual, such as, most notoriously, by pouring acid on her face. This is the real-life Gilead, and a coherent response to the treatment of Iranian women should be high on the agenda of any serious feminist.
Several times after the 9/11 attack, concerted attempts were staged to get Western women to wear headscarves “in solidarity” with Muslim women. They were all unmitigated flops.
I recall sometime in 2002 (I think) walking through Sproul Plaza in Berkeley when Muslim Student Union (I think) was trying to pass out scarves to students. I don’t believe a single scarf was taken. That year the fashion already allowed a tiny kerchief to cover up the mess that, just a few weeks ago, was a sharp pixie cut. Full headscarf seemed just a step away, but the committed lefties walked on, and Muslim Student Union was out of luck.
Trying to jump-start the campus hijab solidarity movement is an annual tradition by now, even though many Muslim women oppose the idea because the dress is not mentioned in the Koran and had been mandated in recent decades by the most repressive Islamist regimes. The number of hijab takers on any given campus can be counted on one hand. Western women would readily accept a good luck charm or a trinket from a foreign land, but folds of imposing cloth over the head is something quite different, turns out.
For one, it’s just not fashionable. And, contrary to the promises, a western woman does not expect to experience any Islamophobia while walking to class, so why bother protesting it in this way? More importantly, hijab is framed as modest form of dress. By the inherent logic, if this is modesty, than your average pony-tail is immodest. So what, you are calling us sluts?
But all of these arguments pale before the fact that hijab comes with a ton of baggage.
When I watched videos of the Iranian uprising with my children, they mused whether maybe we could raise some money for the Iranians. If only it was as simple as emptying a few piggy banks. I blame their yuppie elementary school education for limiting their vision. I expect them to exhibit a different mindset when they grow up.
It’s always demoralizing to be helpless in front of one’s children, yet it seems, apart from frantically retweeting a video or demanding that this or that political figure addresses the crisis, there is very little an average American can do. But at least it’s something.
Here is another idea: in solidarity with the Iranian women, wear your hair down.
I know what it’s like when the government bans freedom of expression. Neither I nor any member of my family was ever in danger of having our faces permanently disfigured for having a stray lock of hair show from under the prescribed babushka, but we did live in danger of a pair of jeans stalling education and careers. Ditto listening to wrong music, reading wrong books or being fond of a wrong art movement. Not to mention that even in our happier late-Socialist days, decades after the death of Stalin, expressing yourself in a non-sanctioned manner could mean a one-way ticket to Siberia.
My readers may say that mine is a self-serving suggestion; that not covering our heads is something we are doing anyway, that it doesn’t require anything of us. They will be right. Yet if sitting here, halfway across the globe, we can freely engage in the kind of behavior Iranian women are literally dying for, we should. Freedom is nothing if we are not exercising it.
We are incredibly lucky that the most important sacrifices for freedom were made by the preceding generations. Ours is not a revolutionary generation; we are not signing a document equal in its significance to the Declaration of Independence, we are not freeing the slaves. Our most important job is to keep the torch of freedom lit.
This is by no means a trivial undertaking: freedom, as Ronald Reagan said, is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is too easy to get comfortable with what we have or needlessly self-righteous, arguing the potential racism and transphobia of pussy hats, to cite one recent example. Those who do so, lose track of what is good while congratulating themselves on their “wokeness”. What we need to do is to honor the achievements of previous generations and to treasure our heritage. It doesn’t mean that we can’t do good as individuals and as a country, but to do so, we need to first remind ourselves who we are, and that people like us don’t side with the ayatollahs.
And Muslim women wearing head cover? It’s true that several instances of assault did take place in this country. But such instances are few and far between, and it’s not clear at all how donning this symbol of oppression of women by both family and state will help those who wear the hijab voluntarily.
The best way to addressing bias against Muslim women is through police work and by shifting the emphasis from group rights to the age-honored Anglo-Saxon tradition of minding one’s own business. Behold:
That said, Hijab’s first cousin, the niqab, which covers the woman entirely and leaves her unable to lead a public life, is abuse. It’s obviously un-American and anti-liberty, and yet I’m seeing more and more of it on the streets. This type of attire should be discouraged socially, as in education and popular culture, and taken into consideration by immigration officials when issuing permanent residency status (yes, they can — or anyway, they could).
I can’t think of a better way to discourage the Iranian women from fighting for their freedom than for young westerners to adopt a uniform required by their oppressors. I hope liberal Iranians will be victorious in their struggle, and I hope to visit Iran one day, and when I do, I want to be able to walk down the street surrounded by ordinary Iranian women, proud, beautiful and happy, wearing skinny jeans and mini skirts, just like they did a few decades ago.
