From the fifteenth of Farvardin, when the leader of the Islamic Republic rose up with a high spirit from the principles and rules of jurisprudence, religion, rights, and ethics, and with the concept of “political taboo,” another war against unveiled women began. All military, police, security, and overt and covert forces have been mobilized to arrest, harass, and assault unveiled women. Not a single minute have these women retreated from their courageous presence in public spaces, and the government has no intention of showing any leniency towards its main enemy. But why is the Islamic Republic, which is the center and foundation of all its social, security, and political policies, and is willing to preserve the interests of the system by any means and at any cost, has not yet come to terms with the issue of hijab, and in the end, by labeling it as a political taboo, has started a widespread campaign against women and caused a shameful display in the eyes of the

It seems that one can speak about this question from the perspective of the concept of “space” and how it is constructed and its reciprocal effect on society.

Power is exerted on bodies through space, and by placing individuals in specific spaces, it determines their social position and places them in a hierarchy, thereby exerting control over different social groups. The distribution of individuals in specific locations and their separation is one of the technologies of power used to place bodies in the center of political affairs and create systems of control and management. Therefore, space is always in a reciprocal relationship with society, producing social structures and distributing inequalities, while society, in turn, appropriates space and reproduces it according to its needs. The creation of new spaces is a form of resistance against the dominant order and a struggle against ideological and political forces in the constructed space.

Male-dominated systems do not allow women to be present in public spaces. They divide the space into private and public, confining women to the private sphere and limiting them to unpaid domestic work and social reproduction, as well as providing labor and suppressing them. Based on this, they define their identity. They place the public space as a field for male work and activity and create the historical stereotype of the powerful, bread-winning man who rules over the life, wealth, and existence of women.

Henri Lefebvre, a French philosopher who studied the effects of modern technology on the body, believes that power prioritizes the organization of space and the body. It not only creates and orders space, but also establishes a masculine domination over it.

According to Loewer, “space and time are not purely material agents and cannot be reduced to purely conceptual and past states. They are perceived as inseparable dimensions of social action. Loewer considers them to be social constructions. As a result, both elements of time and space are the result and prerequisite of social production. Therefore, space and time do not exist in a general sense. Since they are produced socially, they can only be understood within a specific social context. In this sense, space and time are not only related, but are also fundamentally historical. This requires an analysis that encompasses the social structures, power relations, and contradictions inherent in each situation.” (1)

Emmanuel Castells sees space as a material dimension of society, so if we consider it independent from social relationships, it is like separating nature from the body. According to Castells, “since space is nothing but society, changing the environment means changing social relationships.”

With such an understanding of space, one can see the impact of the revolutionary movement “Women’s Freedom” on society and power institutions. Vida Mohadd in 1396 unveiled the silent movement of the Women’s Army. She defined a piece of space, the size of a power pole on a sidewalk in Tehran’s Revolution Street, as a political and social determinant, freeing that space and raising her hair as a symbol of the oppression and subjugation of women, occupying a space in the dictator’s land and raising her hair above it. After her, other women took over other areas of the city, until the historic and exciting moment of Mahsa Amini’s burial, which suddenly affected the women’s hair from the prison and the ideological apparatus that had occupied all the particles of space and had made all the rights of women from the city and public space. It caused serious crises; as the government did not stand for a moment in the streets, in the legislative assembly, in the government

The leader of the Islamic Republic, who considered unveiledness a political taboo and attributed its organization to his enemies – namely America and Israel – called for his forces to confront organized women and prepared an extensive plan to eliminate and expel them from the public space. He realized well that the presence of women in the streets and occupying space and their mutual influence would reverse the dominant relationships in the streets, weaken the pillars of power, and shake the ideological foundations of the system, ultimately leading to its demise.

The street is not just a container for people and their necessities, but rather a product of the intertwining of time, space, and social relationships. It is a physical and spatial interaction, and its ownership by the real owners brings their feet to the forbidden gates of the system.

“The street is the bed of emergence and opening for underground and introverted humans. Underground humans and passive and atomized individuals are the lower classes and diverse strata that have taken the majority of the city’s vast population. Students, employees, unemployed individuals, and free thinkers who have been ignored by the unequal social and class relations of society and have created a storm of anger within them. The story of the underground human – in fact – is a description of the process of this anger emerging. Those who have voluntarily isolated themselves from society or have been expelled, come to the street to be “seen”. This act of seeing, which is at the center of public space and the street, becomes a replacement for the closed underground space, with the goal of emphasizing the “invisible”. Now the space has been turned upside down, and the relationship between the underground human and the rulers of power must be redefined. The foot of an important rival is stepping into the realm of power, and the public space

The formation of the revolutionary women’s movement, in the political sphere of a country, brings women who have been pushed into private spaces throughout history, into the public arena and enables them to carry out unconventional and prohibited actions. This leads to women learning new social relationships, forming new groups and experiencing unique forms of activism, finding each other and sharing the experience of living in a confined and suppressed body, and creating an unstoppable collective force that prevents them from returning to their homes.

It can be concluded that the current movement of revolutionary women in Iran, which every day showcases new forms of resistance and perseverance, and with endurance of pain, suffering, and various forms of oppression, is freeing the public space and paving the way for the liberation of the Iranian nation from the grip of one of the most brutal and anti-people governments of the contemporary era. It depicts the history of humanity in the face of the most extraordinary forms of revolutionary action and has a serious impact on the region and its dictators.

Notes:

1- Punishment, Stephen, milligram, Richard, Günawardena, Kanishka, and Ashmead, Christian, translated by Afshin Khakbaz and Mohammad Fazeli, “Space, Difference, Everyday Life: Reading Henri Lefebvre”, Tehran: Tisa Publishing, 1396.

2- Bahrami Boroumand, Marzieh, “Space, Power, Revolution” (Introduction), Tehran: Logos Publications, 1400.