Iranian Women's Stealthy Freedom

Iranian women have to wear scarves after Iran’s Islamic Revolution which took place in 1979. Last year, the page of My Stealthy Freedom started to open the way for women’s libration which has reached more than 880 thousands followers today. Hundreds of Iranian women who have to wear the scarf due to force or law, opened their scarves at the point where there is no morality police and shared their photos on this page.

There are legal rules and restrictions against women's demands and there is long term prison sentence for arranging street or any kinds of organized movements and attending to them. Therefore they could not develop any movement like woman’s movement in other countries. Actually the page My Stealthy Freedom has provided the opportunity to freely express the problem which was blocked or feared to announce in public space.

We define this kind of activism as “new social movement” which tries to save individual identity from getting colonized by authority. Authority can not control this movement because of high number of women attending this movement and actors can make this fact visible which is suppressed and stored for more than three decades. Removing the headscarf as a symbol of collective action is sending a message which represents demands of gender equality. Through this Facebook page women can also send the messages “we can find each other, we are right, we can talk, we can appeal and etc.” and also has became a place of arguing through the comments and also an opportunity to make communication with men and also women who believe in Hijab. Making this movement online has led it out of borders and in control of authority like Iran it should be an alternative way for social media to be active.