Women move to forefront of Iran opposition movement

For years, women's defiance in Iran came in carefully planned flashes of hair under their head scarves, in brightly painted fingernails, and in trendy clothing that could be glimpsed under bulky coats and cloaks.

But these small acts of rebellion against the theocratic government have been quickly eclipsed in the wake of the disputed June 12 presidential elections. In their place came images of Iranian women marching alongside men, of their scuffles with burly militiamen, of the sobering footage of a young woman named Neda, blood pouring from her mouth and nose minutes after she was fatally shot.

In a part of the Muslim world where women are often repressed, these images have catapulted female demonstrators to the forefront of Iran's opposition movement.

It is a role, say Iranian women and experts, that few seem willing to give up, and one that is likely to present even greater challenges to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hard-line government in the wake of the recent violence and protests.

"Iranian women are very powerful, and they want their freedom," said one woman in Tehran who said she had been taking part in the protests.

Like all women in Iran interviewed for this story, she did not want to be named, fearing government retribution. But, she said, "they're really, really repressed, and they need to talk about it."

The election seemed to open the floodgates for airing that sense of frustration.

Assertions by Ahmadinejad's chief rival for the presidency, Mir Hossein Mousavi, that the election was riddled with fraud were the catalyst for days of protest. The government's harsh response - evidenced in hundreds of arrests, the deaths of more than a dozen demonstrators, clampdowns on the media, the refusal of Iran's theocratic leaders to entertain the possibility of a recount - fueled popular discontent across wide swaths of the population.

But there is an extra layer of resentment and anger among many of Iran's 35 million women. Many fear that a second term for a man first elected in 2005 in part on a platform of restoring "Islamic values" will only prove worse than the first.

"The root of the current unrest is the people's dissatisfaction and frustration at their plight going back before the election," said Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi. "Because women are the most dissatisfied people in society, that is why their presence is more prominent."

In the Muslim Middle East, women have often joined men in protest movements.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, women took part in street demonstrations in the tiny gulf country. Over the years, images of Palestinian women, fists raised in anger against Israel and tears flowing in despair over children and husbands killed, have become a staple of that conflict.

But Iran's protests have elevated such images to a new level.

While Iranian women have been politically active in the past, coming out in large numbers in support of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the latest demonstrations showed them standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their male counterparts, enduring the same blows and threats.

"We were all together, and we helped each other despite our sexuality, and we will be together," said a Tehran woman, 34, who is active in the protests.

They have also given the movement some of its most high-profile arrests, including that of former President Hashemi Rasfanjani's activist daughter. And Neda Agha-Soltan became the public face of the government's repression - a female martyr in a culture that usually relegates women to the role of the martyr's mother or wife.

It remains to be seen how women now will demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the regime, especially if it is headed by a man whose earlier actions were seen as limiting their rights.

Under Ahmadinejad's first term, rules were set in place that made it difficult for women to work late or take on extra hours.

Last year, his government proposed a law that would have made it easier for men to take additional wives. More than 60 female activists who took part in a signature campaign were arrested, said Nayereh Tohidi, a professor at California State University, Northridge, and some are still in jail.