In the autumn of 2022, Iran’s streets surged with defiant energy as chants of “Woman, Life, Freedom!” thundered from the depths of a collective wound among thousands of demonstrators.

The death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman who died in a Tehran hospital after being arrested for not properly wearing the hijab, or headscarf, ignited a fire that spread rapidly.

Initially sparked by demands for women’s rights, this fire soon scorched the very foundations of the regime. What began as a call for the freedom to choose – to wear or not wear the veil – evolved into something far more profound: a demand for justice, a life unshackled from patriarchal control, and an end to the use of women’s bodies as instruments for advancing the regime’s ideology.

As these chants echoed through the streets, they carried an unmistakable challenge to the regime’s authority, reverberating through the corridors of power and reaching the ears of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

For the first time in years, the regime faced a movement not driven by economic hardship, questionable election results, or minority grievances, but by a united, deep-seated yearning for fundamental change.

The Iranian leadership, haunted by the possibility that this movement could swell beyond control, resorted to repression. During months of mass demonstrations, over 500 protesters were killed and around 22,000 people were arrested.

Yet, two years after Amini’s death, it appears the protesters have succeeded in initiating a quiet social revolution in Iran.

“If this is Mahsa’s legacy, she will be happy and proud, and her blood will not have been shed in vain,” said Gilda, a young Iranian woman studying English literature at a university in Tehran, to Al-Ahram Weekly.

Today, in cities like Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz, a scene not seen since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 is unfolding. Women and girls walk the streets without hijabs or with their headscarves draped loosely over their shoulders.

Remarkably, in the weeks and months following Amini’s death, in September 2022, some conservative men harassed these women in hopes of scaring them back into compliance. But soon, young men and less conservative individuals began to intervene, protecting the women and confronting the harassers.

Over time, such harassment dwindled, and even the morality police, following orders from senior officials, have loosened their grip.

It is a quiet yet profound rebellion, not marked by banners or slogans but by simple, everyday acts. These women, young and old, walk through bazaars, ride the metro, sit in cafés, and attend university classes with their hair uncovered, not as part of a grand, organised movement, but as a deeply personal act of defiance.

They are reclaiming not just their right to dress as they please, but their very identities and freedom to exist on their own terms.

This resistance is woven into the daily fabric of life, an unspoken solidarity exchanged through glances and nods of support, a sisterhood that requires no name. The streets of Tehran are no longer just streets; they are arenas of silent protest, where each uncovered head is a declaration of intent, a challenge to a regime that has long equated women’s virtue with the veil.

“At first, only about ten girls were walking through the university corridors without head coverings. Then that number grew to a hundred, and soon to a thousand. The movement spread rapidly. Choosing what to wear is a matter of personal freedom, unrelated to religion or morality. Many girls still choose to wear head coverings, and that too is a personal choice. No one should interfere in how another person dresses,” Gilda argued.

The changes are not limited to the growing number of women and girls defying the regime by appearing in public without head coverings. They are also reflected in the behaviour of men, the vast majority of whom no longer intervene. And when they do, it is often to defend women’s rights.

“I think a lot of men are asking, ‘how can the government focus all its attention on women covering their hair when we don’t have jobs, inflation is sky-high, prices have doubled, and the authorities are planning to lift the petrol subsidy?’” Gilda adds.

The Iranian authorities seem to recognise that imposing the hijab by force is the regime’s “Achilles heel,” a battle it neither wants nor needs.

On the second anniversary of Amini’s death, newly elected Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian promised that the country’s morality police would no longer “harass” women. He emphasised that the role of the morality police is not to confront women over their dress, signalling a possible official relaxation of strict hijab enforcement.

Similarly, Iran’s Attorney General Mohamed Movahedi Azad recently warned the morality police against provoking physical altercations over the hijab. “We have prosecuted violators [in the morality police], and we will continue to do so,” Movahedi Azad stated in the state media.

“No one has the right to act inappropriately, even if the individual has committed a crime,” he emphasised.

While no official decision has been made to relax the hijab laws in Iran, there are signs that the political landscape is shifting. Discussions in newspapers and television no longer focus as heavily on the hijab, and criticism of those who choose not to wear it has diminished.

This softening of the regime’s stance may be linked to a recent survey conducted by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, which found that the hijab has become one of the most emotionally and politically charged issues in Iran and a major point of criticism against the regime.

While economic concerns and unemployment remain critical, the hijab issue has become central to women’s quest for independence and dignity. By resisting mandatory hijab laws, Iranian women challenge not only the imposition of clothing but also the regime’s broader narrative, which uses their bodies to project an image of moral and political purity.

Their resistance speaks to a deep longing for the right to exist freely, without state interference in personal choices, and a push towards a society where their bodies are no longer battlegrounds for ideological control.

For Gilda, what gives her hope that this quiet social revolution will endure is the fact that most Iranian women have a university education and many hold prestigious positions in fields once dominated by men, such as medicine, nuclear physics, architecture, publishing, engineering, and accounting.

Women now outpace men in higher education, with the latest data showing that women make up about 60 per cent of university students in Iran, compared to 40 per cent of men.

Iran, which is already grappling with difficult and complex internal and regional challenges, does not need an internal conflict over the veil. It seems clear that this realisation has taken hold within the regime, as reflected in Pezeshkian’s striking statements about curbing the morality police’s pursuit of women without headscarves.

The regime is acutely aware of the growing gap between its ageing leaders, most of whom are over 70, and the younger generation under 30, who now make up around 70 per cent of the population.

Moreover, this is no longer a battle the regime can win by force. What is unfolding is not a revolution in the traditional sense: there are no mass protests, no single leader to arrest, and no clear front lines.

Instead, it is a quiet revolution of everyday life, embodied in small acts of defiance, like a woman casually leaving her scarf in her bag, as if it no longer belongs to her reality. It is a soft rebellion conservatives, and hardliners in Iran don’t know how to deal with it.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 19 September, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly