Compulsory Hijab and the Boundaries of the One Million Signatures Campaign’s Demands/ Aliyeh Motalebzadeh

I belong to a generation of women who have spent a large part of their lives in conflict with the Islamic Republic; not only in the streets, in prison, and in civil activism, but also in the media, in photographs and images, in those very places that the government, whenever it has deemed necessary, has […]...

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The One Million Signatures Campaign: Strategies, Achievements, and an Enduring Legacy in Iran’s Women’s Civil Movement/ Azadeh Davachi

The “One Million Signatures Campaign to Change Discriminatory Laws” (Change for Equality), launched in August 2006 (Mordad 1385) through the efforts of a group of women’s rights activists, is regarded as one of the most prominent, cohesive, and influential collective actions in Iran’s contemporary history. By adopting an issue-oriented approach and making use of social […]...

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The One Million Signatures Campaign and the Women Left Out of Its Narrative/ Samireh Hanaei

When does a movement that claims to represent “all women” turn the experience of one particular group of women into the general experience of women as a whole? When we speak of the “Iranian women’s movement,” exactly which women are we talking about? Who defines these women? Who decides what constitutes a women’s issue? Is […]...

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The One Million Signatures Campaign and the Tradition of Petitioning/ Majid Shia’Ali

Twenty years have passed since an experience that was never repeated either before or after it. It was a campaign made unique by the convergence of several characteristics: the formation of a formal feminist movement, political and religious moderation with an emphasis on legality and non-conflict with religious foundations, an emphasis on collective action and […]...

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Men in the One Million Signatures Campaign and the Test of Commitment to Equality/ Kaveh Kermanshahi

Twenty years have passed since the launch of the “One Million Signatures Campaign to Change Discriminatory Laws.” The movement was initiated by activists in the women’s movement and, for many young people, became their first experience of social activism and their first close encounter with the struggle for gender equality. Among these young people were […]...

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Let’s embrace the small steps/ Raha Azadi

Those who are around my age remember the One Million Signatures Campaign. Just when civil society felt that it had been pushed several steps backward by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, efforts—perhaps struggles—were underway to take steps forward, however small. This was one of them. Its memories now go back twenty years; its website is no longer […]...

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From One Million Signatures to Woman, Life, Freedom: Continuity or Rupture?/ Hermineh Hourdad

When we speak today of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, there is a strong temptation to begin everything in September 2022 (Shahrivar 1401), as though the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini suddenly gave birth to the questions of women, freedom, and the body in Iranian society. But the memory of the women’s movement tells a […]...

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Twenty Years of Transformation in Iranian Women’s Activism/ Diako Moradi

Twenty years after the launch of the “One Million Signatures Campaign to Change Discriminatory Laws,” revisiting this experience becomes meaningful when we assess it not only by the number of signatures that were supposed to be collected or the laws that were supposed to be changed, but by the impact it had on forms of […]...

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How Did Repression Change the Course of the One Million Signatures Campaign?/ Sina Yousefi

The twentieth anniversary of the One Million Signatures Campaign provides an opportunity to revisit one of the most important experiences of Iran’s women’s movement. It was an experience that, in the mid-2000s, sought to move the demand for legal equality from the realm of specialized discussions and limited circles of activists into the sphere of […]...

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The Discriminatory Legal Structure Against Women in Iran and the Strategic Logic of the One Million Signatures Campaign/ Parvaneh Ahmadi

The legal, social, and political status of women in contemporary Iranian history, particularly in the decades following the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979 (1357), has always been marked by profound contradictions and complexities. On the one hand, as time has passed, Iranian society has witnessed the dynamism and extensive presence of women in […]...

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The Erosion of the Middle Class: A Test for Civil Society/ Mina Javani

The middle class is usually defined in terms of income level, consumption patterns, or educational attainment, as though the issue were merely one of drawing an economic boundary separating one segment of society from the lower and upper classes. Yet the historical and political significance of this class cannot be reduced to its economic position. […]...

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Society and National Security: Rethinking the Social Foundations of Security in Iran/ Mina Javani

In periods of heightened external threats, the concept of national security naturally becomes the focus of public policymaking. In such circumstances, the expansion of state authority, the strengthening of security institutions, and the restriction of certain civil liberties are often justified by invoking the “necessity of security.” This logic is based on the assumption that […]...

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