Conflicting Social Forces within the Žina Movement

The Žina uprising began in September 2022. It followed the killing of a Kurdish woman in Tehran by the morality police. The uprising was, above all, a symbol of the Iranian people’s desire for life and their rejection of death. Due to its distinct articulation of “woman”, “life” and “freedom”, the uprising was expected to pioneer the first feminist revolution in the Middle East. A deep anger and desire for revenge against “perpetrators” and “commanders” of death united Iran's diverse peoples. This was after a half-century of scattered resistance against a theocratic, patriarchal order. A solidarity that included real differences and empathy among people.

The experience of nearly two years of the Žina uprising, alongside the emergence of other conflicts, can make the internal cracks in the defense of “life” more believable. The conditions under which the demand for “life and freedom” has been addressed in these two years have turned our attention from the “intrinsic sanctity of life” to the value of “someone's life”. For the authors of this article, observing the epistemological challenges between different interpretations of the fundamental elements of that movement in different sociohistorical contexts—in the process of reducing the initial intense solidarity—is an eloquent medium for showing the conflictual social and political forces in appropriating an “idea”. Especially in a situation where the gaps between social forces in Iran are mainly pushed in favor of another gap between the imaginary image of the homogeneous Iranian opposition and the dominant repressive order. This article seeks to reveal that the demand for “woman, life, and freedom” within the Žina movement can be identified with what different and sometimes conflictual patterns, and in which intersections of discrimination do Iranian feminist fighters face more repression and threats.