On March 8, 1979, just weeks after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran and the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah, the new regime made its intentions clear: the revolution would not include equal rights for women.
That day, more than 100,000 Iranian women flooded the streets of Tehran in protest. The spark? Khomeini's announcement that all women must wear the Islamic hijab in public. It was the first significant act of resistance to the incoming theocracy—and a bold stand for women’s freedom.
The protest coincided with International Women’s Day, and while the streets were still buzzing with revolutionary fervor, the message from these women was powerful: the revolution was not supposed to bring dictatorship in a new form.
The demonstrators came from all walks of life—students, professionals, secular women, and even some religious ones—chanting “We didn’t make a revolution to go backwards!” and “Freedom is not Eastern or Western, it is universal.” They carried banners demanding equality, the right to choose their clothing, and an end to state-imposed religious law.
Though the protest lasted several days and made headlines around the world, the regime would not budge. Khomeini’s hijab decree remained, and over the years, the mandatory veiling laws would become one of the most visible and oppressive symbols of the Islamic Republic's control.
The 1979 protest is remembered as a moment of clarity—when Iranian women, still hopeful after the revolution, tried to assert their rights before the door slammed shut. Despite decades of crackdowns since, that spirit of defiance never disappeared. It lived on in the voices of women like Neda Agha-Soltan during the 2009 Green Movement, and more recently in the “Women, Life, Freedom” protests of 2022, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in custody for not wearing her hijab “properly.”
Today, the courage of those 100,000 women in 1979 stands as a historic moment of protest against Islamist tyranny. It was not just about headscarves—it was about the right to live freely in one's own country, without forced religion or state control over one’s body.