In 2022, many things changed. For the first time, many women made it clear to the men in their lives and to society that a woman’s choice of clothing is her personal matter. Not all women succeeded, but even this marked a widespread social revolution in Iran. Society has gained a certain awareness of the behavior that has been directed against women for years, though many issues beyond hijab remain unresolved.
Now, very few men might comment on women’s clothing in the streets, and aside from plainclothes agents, ordinary people have largely accepted the way Iranian women dress.
Meanwhile, social and even economic pressures persist. Under the weight of severe sanctions, people lose their assets daily. Education, healthcare, and services grow more expensive, and the government increases pressure by raising taxes and the cost of water, electricity, and gas. In winter, homes—often not built to standard—cannot stay warm, and frequent power outages force people to endure heat, disrupt administrative and factory operations, and even affect hospitals at times.
The government has largely lost its ability to control the population, but those unlucky enough may still fall victim to its limited remaining power. People have clearly realized that the government no longer has its former capacity to suppress civil protests. However, neither the government nor the people have fully prevailed over the other. In fact, the contest between the people and the government is tied at one
to-one, and both are well aware that this situation is neither sustainable nor stable in the long term.
Tina
Tina lives in Tehran. Three years ago, she had a pregnancy out of wedlock, which led to her complete rejection by her family. Her friends sometimes ask how she isn’t worried that her family might one day come and kill her out of fear for their reputation. These days, news of girls being killed by their families terrifies Tina even more. Since then, she has been moving between different dormitories in Tehran. She
has become involved with a young man who owns the restaurant where she works, but he takes advantage of her situation. When Tina becomes pregnant again, she doesn’t dare confront him because the law would blame her for the extramarital relationship, and new laws criminalize abortion, with no doctor willing to perform it. In the end, in the dormitory, with the help of two friends, she spends all her savings on a pill to terminate the pregnancy, but the abortion fails, and she suffers severe
bleeding. Too scared to go to a doctor or inform the dormitory authorities, she stays silent. But when one of the dormitory residents reports the situation to the authorities, Tina flees the dormitory at night, with no money, no place to go, and no health. Tina, who believes that hijab is not the real issue for Iranian women, is stricter about wearing it than all her friends, driven by fear of both the authorities and God,
trying to give the police no reason to arrest her.
Sina
Sina and his friends are brainstorming their plan in the living room of Sina’s house. Everything here is informal; there isn’t even a sofa to sit on. Following the old Iranian tradition, they’re seated on a carpet, drinking tea together. Sina believes that if they don’t act now, not only they but also their fellow townspeople will have no future, and their small town will gradually vanish from existence. He wants to join his farmer friends to secretly break the water pipeline transferring their town’s water to Mashhad. For years, Sina has worked on a relatively small farm in South Khorasan—one of Iran’s poorest provinces—supporting two families through it. Despite having legal water rights, the government has cut off their
agricultural water for years and told them to change their crops. But Sina has heard from friends that the water supply to Astan Quds Razavi, Iran’s largest landowner, hasn’t been cut, and they’re even wasting electricity by setting up Bitcoin mining farms during this power shortage. Sina has joined farmers’ protests several times and is worried that the water from their town’s only small river will be diverted to Mashhad. When he and other farmers gathered in front of the governor’s office to protest, the governor invoked the name of Imam Hussein, the third Shia Imam, who is said to have been denied water and left thirsty 1,400 years ago, urging the people to agree to let the water be taken for the “holy” city of Mashhad. Despite the governor’s emphasis on Mashhad’s sanctity, the people don’t accept his words. As they chant against the new water transfer plan, water cannons from the governor’s office are used to disperse the protesting farmers.
Saeed
Saeed has been working in a factory in Khuzestan for 15 years and hasn’t received his salary for months. His wife, Nazanin, had to move to her parents’ house because they have no food at home. Their only child, Soren, is supposed to start first grade, but the school registration fees are too high for the family. Soren dreams of having new stationery for his first year, and last week, Saeed asked his boss to see if he
could get some used stationery for Soren. This year, stationery prices in Iran have risen by 60%, but Saeed has no money for Soren’s school expenses since his boss says they can’t pay salaries yet. Without money, Soren must attend a public school, where the principal will likely mistreat him because Saeed can’t afford the “voluntary contribution” that all public schools demand from parents. The car radio is on, broadcasting a message about how “every Iranian must contribute to population growth, and families shouldn’t worry about having children,” with the government offering a one-million-toman (about $12) loan for those who want to have a baby. Meanwhile, Saeed, feeling ashamed, arrives at his father-in-law’s
house—a retired teacher—to ask if he could possibly lend some money for Soren’s school expenses. But his father-in-law’s situation is no better than his own.
Sadegh
Before the first light of dawn breaks over Kerman’s smog-laden skyline, Sadegh, a 70-year-old retired teacher and father-in-law, drags himself out of bed, wincing as his knees creak and his back protests with every step. The city is still cloaked in the quiet of early morning, but for Sadegh, the day has already begun. He shuffles to his battered old car, its engine coughing to life reluctantly, much like his own weary body. As a driver for Snapp, Iranian Uber, he navigates the empty streets, picking up passengers to make ends meet. His young daughter and his little grandson, full of innocent dreams, rely on him, as do his son and daughter-in-law, whose own struggles add to the weight on Sadegh’s frail shoulders. Years of chalk dust and classroom lessons had once promised a peaceful retirement, but those dreams have crumbled. Soaring inflation has eroded his meager pension, and embezzlement in the country’s pension
funds mean his payments often arrive late, if at all. Each night, as pain keeps him awake, Sadegh stares at the cracked ceiling of his rented apartment, wondering how much longer he can carry the burden of a family that depends on his every early morning ride.
Roya
Roya also lives in Tehran. She loves the city and, while spending a few months of the year with her family in Italy, resides the rest of the time in a luxurious house on Zafar Street in Tehran. She and her family sometimes drive around the streets near Tehran, excitedly discussing Iran’s transformation. Roya believes she has never seen Tehran so free, with women letting their hair down. Her boyfriend, a doctor at Imam
Khomeini Hospital, thinks Roya has never ventured below Valiasr Street and is unaware of how most Tehranis live. Uptown Tehran is like a different world. Power outages are rare, the municipality sweeps and washes the streets every morning, and even the air feels somewhat cleaner. People walk their dogs or go without hijab fines without worry. Around Zafar Street, some of the most expensive homes in the Middle East can be found. There are no signs of the poverty and hardship experienced by the rest of Iran’s population here. The best and most modern recreational facilities and various malls are scattered throughout this area, and the cost of an hour at a playhouse for a child in this neighborhood equals the monthly fee of a kindergarten in some other parts of Tehran. Roya attributes this to the higher
taxes the municipality collects from uptown residents, but her boyfriend stubbornly calls it “class disparity.”
Sara
Sara, a 23-year-old final-year undergraduate student in Karaj, is riding in her father’s car on the way to university. She’s worried that their daily argument might start again. Her father is a reasonable man, but as he casually puffs on his cigarette, he tells Sara, “Put your scarf on now. Last week, I got a hijab violation text. If they hassle you at university, I can’t do much to help. I know you don’t like it, and I don’t blame you, but there’s nothing we can do. They’re much more powerful than you think. They know everything about us. They’ve brought in tons of devices from China to track everyone without hijab. The news said they’re going to identify anyone without hijab using their high-tech cameras.” Sara mutters in frustration,
“But they still can’t produce the chip for my national ID card, and that’s why I’ve been waiting for years to get one.” Her father doesn’t catch her words and drops her off at Azadi Square, and after a flurry of advice, they say goodbye. The Tehran-Karaj road is one of the country’s busiest, shuttling thousands of
commuters daily between two large, polluted cities. Sara glances at the city’s smog darkened sky. Coughing uncontrollably, her mind races with thoughts: she still hasn’t decided about seeing a doctor and must wait until the end of the month when her father gets paid. Every day, commuting from home to her university in Tehran, she faces the stress of hijab enforcement. In 2022, she was active on social media
for the movement, but now she’s overwhelmed by conflicting emotions like guilt. Forced to wear her scarf in the car due to fear of fines and her father’s insistence, Sara feels trapped. She desperately wants to continue her studies but faces her family’s financial struggles. Education in Iran has become extremely expensive, and even middle-class families struggle to cover their children’s costs. With two younger
sisters, Sara feels compelled to sacrifice her dream of pursuing her favorite field of study for their sake.
Jouan
As she passes by the Resalat Bridge, Jouan thinks to herself, “This Bridge is the best.” Every day, she curiously reflects on the countless bridges in Tehran. She harbors a wish for the courage to throw herself off one. Last week, a friend from her dormitory told her, “You need to take Asentra. We’re all surviving on Asentra.” Juan repeats this to herself, angrily muttering, “Why should we have to survive on Asentra? And Asentra is too expensive for me. Where am I supposed to get the money to take a pill every day?” Recently, she started a job earning 13 million tomans a month, working from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Her boss seems like a kind and wealthy old man, currently building a new villa near Sari for his wife and children. He sometimes asks the young woman for her opinion on modern building façade designs and occasionally urges her to eat, wondering why she’s become so frail. The class gap between them is so vast that, despite his compassion, he can’t grasp the depth of his employee’s struggles. Jouan, from Kurdistan and a religious family, has a father who works for the water and sewage department and is a traditional man. She moved from Sanandaj to Tehran a year before the protests began. Tehran has become a haven for girls like her, fleeing the restrictive traditional environments of some smaller cities. Jouan prefers the harsh economic conditions of Tehran, living in a cramped, dark room, over returning to her family and the extensive limitations she faced there. Back home, she was forced to fully observe hijab, even indoors. In
Tehran, she roams in a blouse and pants. The depression from years of living in her family’s stifling environment still lingers, unresolved. Though she’s just started working, Jouan has little hope for her future. With her meager salary, every few months, as dormitory rents rise, she’s forced to move to a smaller, farther one, making her daily commute between the dormitory and work three to four hours long.
Farnaz
As usual, the first thing Farnaz does at work in the morning is check the prices of gold and the dollar. She’s managed to invest in a small amount of gold, and every day, depending on optimism or pessimism about the negotiations, her entire life’s savings either grow or shrink. While anxiously scrolling through Telegram, which she accesses with a VPN, reading news from “VahidOnline,” a commotion outside snaps her back to reality. She quickly closes Telegram and opens “Eitaa,” the social media platform endorsed by the Islamic Republic. A soldier enters the office and calls for Farnaz. A gift package from her friend has arrived, but her friend wasn’t allowed into the building because she wasn’t wearing a hijab. In the lush courtyard of the office, a heated argument has erupted, with the young woman insisting she has the right to enter since her friend is an employee here. Farnaz lives in Fooman. She was recently hired as a permanent employee in one of the city’s government offices and lives with her family. Both her family
circumstances and work environment prevent her from abandoning mandatory hijab. Her neighbors keep a close watch on her, and she afraids that if they catch her even for a moment without her chador or headscarf, it could quickly reach her bosses’ ears. Because of her job, she’s constantly forced to repeat certain lies to clients, unable to tell them that frequent power outages are often why their work gets
delayed. On the other hand, when the office loses power, her room becomes unbearably hot, and with the hijab, the heat feels even more oppressive. If she were a woman with a freelance job, she could wear looser clothing, but in the office, even in extreme heat, they weren’t allowed to show any hesitation about maintaining hijab. Sometimes, she wishes she could take off her chador and headscarf for a moment on
her way home from work to feel a sense of freedom. She’s tried several times but doesn’t know exactly where the high-precision cameras, rumored to be installed on city streets to identify people, are located. In truth, no one knows exactly how much they monitor Iranians’ social networks, people’s movements in the streets, and their private lives. There are so many supervisory institutions, and so many rumors about
them, that even many of the country’s officials are honestly unaware of the accuracy
of these institutions’ oversight. Farnaz know it and tries to use these little gaps. Her main pastime is watching Netflix and HBO series, which briefly distract her from her worries about her current
situation and society. Another hobby is visiting the city’s cafes. Cafe culture has recently become hugely popular in Iran, and middle-class people, despite financial pressures, try to set aside part of their monthly budget to visit cafes, where they can feel a momentary sense of freedom in spaces that are generally less strict about hijab and music compared to other urban settings.
Tannaz
Tannaz, a young woman living in Semnan, is deeply optimistic and happy about the events following the Mahsa movement. She believes people have changed significantly. The most notable change she sees is in her brothers. Having previously faced many restrictions, she now feels a greater sense of freedom and ease due to the shift in her brothers’ mindset. She can go to work and has fulfilled her dream of joining a gym, something she couldn’t do before because people used to mock her weight and figure. Now, it seems people’s attitudes have greatly evolved, even on this matter, and they show respect for diverse body types. While heading to the gym, two women and a soldier accompanying them reprimand her for wearing a short sleeved shirt. She tries to convince them with a smile, explaining that she doesn’t have another outfit with her at the moment but will wear something more appropriate next time. However, the woman in a chador who scolded her demands that Tannaz hand over her mobile phone for inspection. Tannaz resists, insisting that this is illegal. The soldier forcibly takes her phone, checks the latest photos on it, and then returns it to her.
Arghavan
Arghavan, a 40-year-old woman working in Tehran, glances at the soldiers stationed around Valiasr Square most days and mutters under her breath that this is practically martial law. It’s unclear why the number of soldiers in their menacing black uniforms fluctuates daily. They’re present in central Tehran’s streets most days, and every time Arghavan sees them, she feels a deep mix of fear and rage. She was active in the 2009 protests, joining her student friends in many demonstrations. When the Mahsa movement began, she obsessively compared the days of 2009 with those of 2022, trying to discern through these comparisons whether there was any hope left. Despite holding a PhD, her hijab observance prevented her from becoming a university faculty member, so she works at a company run by a deeply religious boss. She’s never had much hope for societal or governmental improvement and tried for years to emigrate from Iran, but now she feels hopeless and defeated. Every day at work, she must wear a maghnaeh (some kind of headscarf). She harbors a deep hatred for hijab and has clashed with the morality police multiple times, even getting arrested once. During the 2022 protests, she was out in the streets, and right beside her, plainclothes agents lifted her best friend like a feather and took her away
in a Nissan Patrol. Since that day, she’s heard nothing about her friend. That was the last protest Arghavan attended, and now she feels she no longer has the strength to participate in demonstrations. Her acts of resistance are now limited to removing her scarf in certain streets, passing through metro gates without swiping her card, and occasionally taunting the soldiers who always ignite her subconscious anger.
Fatemeh
Fatemeh is 15 years old, and she spends these spring days riding her bicycle with her friends through the alleys near her grandmother’s house in Isfahan. Her grandmother disapproves of girls riding bicycles, but the main problem is Fatemeh’s father, who works for a military institution. Everyone knows he must never find out about his daughter’s cycling. That’s why Fatemeh only gets the chance to taste a bit of freedom on the days when her father is away on a mission.
Life hasn’t changed suddenly or quickly for these people. It remains uncertain whether Tina will find a safe dormitory and a secure job; what will happen to the water scarcity, especially in cities heavily dependent on agriculture; whether Sara will be able to continue her studies despite rising university costs; or whether
Fatemeh will one day be able to ride her bicycle alongside her father without fear.
All these stories are drawn from the everyday realities of life in Iran today. In a place where an old proverb says, “We have fallen from the horse, not from dignity,” people continue their quiet, persistent resistance, independent of the demands of the government or the opposition. While headlines may focus on moments of upheaval, it is in these everyday acts—of perseverance, defiance, and hope—that Iran’s future is quietly yet profoundly being shaped.
