For years, laws have imposed strict regulations on female dormitories. In the latest regulations of some universities, the curfew for female dormitories has been reduced to the time of Maghrib prayer, officially depriving female students of the ability to be present in the city and university after class hours and making the city more masculine than ever before. The reduction of curfew hours to Maghrib prayer has been prevalent in some universities before and is not a new issue; the only new issue is the increasing spread of this level of restriction among female dormitories after the reopening of universities. It seems that the government intends to take advantage of the security closure of universities under the pretext of COVID-19 and reopen the university with strict oppressive rules.

In the meantime, we must keep in mind that, based on experience, the suppression resulting from the curfew law prohibiting the presence of girls in public spaces after certain hours goes beyond. As a female student, if you are not present in the dormitory at the designated time determined by the university and come to the dormitory afterwards, you must fill out a form called the Delay Form and state at what time and for what reason you arrived late to the dormitory. Dormitory officials contact the families of a group of girls from among the filled out forms. Conversations between dormitory officials and families are the most oppressive and insulting conversations against dormitory girls. It has happened many times that they have told families, “Do you have any idea where your daughter is and what she is doing? She comes to the dormitory at midnight, not to the dormitory, do you know where she is and with whom?” These talks have been brought up many times about female students who have been delayed

Repetitive filling of delayed student girls’ forms leads to summoning and commitment or even dormitory action for cancellation of accommodation. There are many dormitory girls who, out of fear of such processes, avoid entering the dormitory after the specified time and spend the night homeless or indebted to their friends; because cheating for dormitory attendance is easier and they can be present without filling out the delay form, without actually being present in the dormitory.

This situation occurs when many girls are forced to work due to the high cost of education, and on the other hand, the consumption of cultural products or the use of university library facilities forces them to postpone the dormitory entry time after the specified time; meaning that these rules of entry and exit, in addition to being restrictive and anti-feminine, are also in conflict with other mechanisms of the university.

But the designated times for entry and exit, with all the humiliations and pressures that accompany it, is just one of the ways that suppression is enforced in girls’ dormitories. In many university dormitories, girls are forced to wear a specific type of hijab; for example, entry and exit in many dormitories for girls must be done with a veil and the use of scarves is prohibited. Girls in dormitories who want to go out into the city and do not want to wear a veil (like a breath of fresh air for many) are forced to wear a veil when leaving the dormitory, but they must also carry a scarf or veil with them and change their hijab further away from the dormitory. The same thing happens when they return to the dormitory, and many of these oppressive rules have similar pressure and suppression mechanisms with the designated times for entry and exit. Additionally, when the windows of girls’ dormitories face the city, university officials cover the windows in

Apart from these, the female dormitory guards check each room every night under the pretext of presence and absence. These checks, in many dormitories, involve the guards interfering in the personal lives of female students; from the arrangement and tidiness of the room to even the clothing of the girls in the dormitories.

The domain of discrimination against girls is much wider than this. A simple example is that smoking is prohibited in all dormitory areas for girls (in open spaces and courtyards). This is while smoking is a personal right and is not even incompatible with religious moral codes; in addition, dormitory areas (open spaces and courtyards) for girls are often under strict surveillance with cameras, and it is still unclear who has given university officials permission to film and archive the personal lives of thousands of female students.

The descriptions that were said from inside the girls’ dormitory, anyone who has experienced prison immediately remembers it. In fact, university officials intend to extract the ideal woman of the Islamic Republic from girls’ dormitories through restrictions, suppression, and discrimination: unseen sunlight, domestic, suitable for marriage and having children. It goes without saying that they have read it blindly!

Throughout all these years, dormitory girls have found various ways to fight or rebel against these oppressive regulations; methods of circumventing the hijab rules, finding hiding places to smoke, dozens and hundreds of ways to bypass entry and exit regulations, public and persistent protests against these regulations, negative and public resistance against these regulations, institutional pressure through trade unions to improve these regulations, and many other methods, all of which have contributed to the daily resistance of female students. For example, the Trade Union Council of Tehran University was able to push back the curfew for dormitory girls to midnight in the late 1990s, or in one of the female dormitories of Tehran University, a group of students discovered a hidden entrance that they used for months to come and go without being seen by cameras, guards, or regulations. In most gatherings and statements of the student movement during the 1990s, protest against the situation of female dormitories was one of the main demands, which led to significant