What Does It Mean That Women Are Burning Hijabs In Iran?
The Protests In Iran Might Not Be The Moment You Think
The death of Mahsa Amini, who died after being arrested in Tehran while traveling with her family, has sparked dramatic dissent in Iran. National outrage is most visible in the widely-circulated videos of women burning their hijabs in public, acts that are being lauded by many in the West as a siren call for women’s liberation in Iran.
But this might not be the moment it’s so easy to assume it is. As I saw someone ask on Twitter, and this is paraphrased, if you’re supporting Iranian protestors now but didn’t defend the right of French women to keep their hijabs, you’re not the ally you think you are.
As someone who lived in the Persian Gulf on assignment for Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, I was loaded down with assumptions. A terminally-lapsed Catholic who’d grown up in American suburbia, I believed my work would help empower the Qatari women. My first mistake was being part of the university in their backyard.
“This isn’t clear enough,” said my boss, a local Muslim, after scanning an ad. “You have to come out and say it’s the same prestigious degree they get in the States.”
