My hair has always been the first thing people notice about me. It’s big, curly, incredibly ethnic, and tough to manage on the best of days.
When I’m stressed and desperately in need of a lock-in, she’s tightly pinned up (she's perpetually up). When I want to look nice, she’s styled and she’s on full show. And, unfortunately for me, you can tell from a mile away if I’m going through it when she is a frizzy nightmare. Try convincing me DIY bangs or a shitty dye job at 2 a.m. are not a cry for help? My hair is an extension of my identity.
And you’d be unsurprised to hear that many women feel the same. Our hair is a part of who we are.
So much so that in 2006 the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice in England and Wales deemed in DPP v Smith [2006] EWHC 94 it as “actual bodily harm” to non-consensually cut an individual’s hair. With a major component in the court’s decision-making process being the psychological impacts on the predominantly female victims.
For our sisters in the East, it is a painfully different reality.
On 16 September 2022 in Iran’s capital, Tehran, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody for allegedly not adhering to mandatory hijab laws.
She was forcibly taken from her family on her way to visit her brother, where she was then detained by the ‘morality police’, a special police force made to enforce Islamic sumptuary laws. The force is protected from any repercussions from brutally beating, arresting, imprisoning, starving, torturing and executing people who are seen violating these laws. Mahsa Amini was beaten and tortured, left for hours without medical attention, was pronounced as having acute brain damage in a coma for two days, before dying.
This was the catalyst in bringing to the spotlight a long-standing liberation movement:
Zan, Zendegi, Azadi.
Woman, Life, Freedom.
It is easy and a cheap shot to come after the physical act of wearing a hijab, as, historically, Muslim women elect to wear the religious scarf as an act of modesty. It is a decision made between woman and God. It was only in the late 1970’s, where, as a consequence of the Islamic revolution, the hijab became mandatory in Iran, thus becoming a demonised symbol of control and repression globally.
Two years after Amini’s murder, 6 days ago, on 15 December 2024, Parastoo Ahmady was arrested for singing on a YouTube live without a hijab in a black dress which showed her arms.
It is important to note that in the wake of the Islamic revolution, women were banned from singing solo to mixed gender audiences.
In the midst of the storm, sworn with the boatmen
One must move forward, at the risk of his life
English Translation of ‘Mara Baboos’, written by Heydar Raqabi
These were the words sung on 11 December, the folk song echoing throughout an ancient motel in the Iranian desert found on the silk road. A place where the east meets the west. Ahmady led her four male band mates in the first live female concert in Iran post-revolution to an empty room and camera.
An act of civil disobedience, in the midst of the storm. In the following days, the video reached 1.6 million views.
Four days later, the singer and two of her band mates were incarcerated by Iranian authorities in an undisclosed location. The three have since been released but must appear in front of a court of law to plead their case.
It has become clear that what this government fears most is female autonomy. Stripping women of their identity, their rights and their voices. Despite what Western media will have you believe, Iran bears a rich history and culture which, terribly, has been overshadowed by a regime of persecution and abuse.
As a member of the Iranian diaspora, it pains me to hear these stories from my home country. More so knowing that Western media outlets have minimal to no coverage on these events.
Why must there always be some sort of sacrificial lamb? How many must fight, disappear, or die? Why must we only act after a preventable death? Why must this action only come in the form of condemnation? This is happening every day and has been for decades. Over 750 people have died protesting. An estimated 30,000 have been arrested in their fight for liberation. Enough is enough.
I look to my curls, which I’ve always thought never sat quite right on my shoulders, and think of my sisters in Iran who are fighting for such a simple pleasure. The privilege to manage their own hair.
Zan, Zendegi, Azadi.