Mahsa Amini was a 22-year-old woman from the western city of Saqqez located in Iran’s Kurdistan province. She was taken into custody for breaking the Iranian law which requires women to cover their hair with a headscarf or a hijab. While on the way to the detention centre she was tortured in the van causing her to have a heart attack and brain seizure at the police station. Her death has proven the lack of women’s rights in the middle east and caused a series of protests against the Iranian government.
When I first read about Amini’s death through a reposted Instagram story, I thought to myself, why today in 2022 is it still so hard to be a woman? Roe vs Wade being overturned and the death of Mahsa Amini are both recent events that prove how fragile women’s right to their own body continue to be. While Amini’s death sparked the protests in Iran, the roots of the lack of women’s rights in Iran stretch back decades. Women’s rights in Iran have faced a lot of changes, with new government rulings, laws enforcing women’s rights were placed, removed, and changed overtime. At this time, the most known law that limits women’s rights to their bodies in Iran is the dress code requirement, which was a law adopted four years after Iran’s Islamic Revolution. The law states that all women regardless of faith or nationality, must conceal their hair with a headscarf in public. Women in Iran have heavily protested against this law and protests drastically increased after many women were angered at the drastic cause for Amini’s death. Another heavily protested topic regarding women’s rights has been the “my body my choice” campaign. Which is a feminist slogan used in several countries. Whether it has to do with getting an abortion or being forced to wear a hijab, women still have to face many issues surrounding body autonomy.
Women’s rights is still a threat all around the world in undeveloped countries like Iran and even in developed countries like the US. This has been an ongoing issue that unfortunately is still something we have to think about today and as a young feminist I question what is being done to improve women’s rights in 2022? After doing some research I found many international organizations fighting for women’s rights such as, UN Women, Center for Reproductive Rights, Womankind Worldwide, and International Alliance of Women. These organizations each are advocating for a feminist future, where women have the right to their own bodies and are treated equally. My hope is that by the time I’m an adult, laws limiting women will no longer exist and the young feminists today will grow up making an impact on this world.
matcha for the mind 