#MyStealthyFreedom: Unique online protest against compulsory hijab in Iran

In most parts of the world, women posting photographs on Facebook showing off their hair will be considered beautiful. But in conservative Iran, it’s considered a punishable crime. But this isn’t stopping the younger generation from flouting the norms by sharing their photographs without their headscarf, in a unique form of rebellion. [caption id=“attachment_2296620” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Masih Alinejad. Screengrab from YouTube[/caption] The online social movement was started by Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad and is very aptly called My Stealthy Freedom. According to the official website,  the movement is all about ‘The right for individual Iranian women to choose whether they want hijab.’ “Our website is a living archive of the photos and videos shared with us by these brave women, and the media coverage (both good and bad) that we receive from inside and outside Iran,” reads the description. Women in Iran have had to cover their hair in public since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. However, many people, including several men, feel that wearing a headscarf should be a personal choice and not obligatory. It all began when Alinejad, a journalist who grew up in Iran but currently lives in the United States, uploaded her photograph without the headscarf asking if other Iranian women felt the same. To her surprise, she received numerous replies of women who had and wanted to live without the hijab. Alinejad then began her Facebook page documenting the stories of the women who sent her photographs with their hair showing, many of them taken in public, often under signs that urge women to cover their hair. She also received photographs from men, who supported her cause by posing with women with uncovered heads. My Stealthy Freedom has about 814,863  likes on Facebook as this was being written. Talking about her struggles with the headscarf, Alinejad, a recipient of the Women’s Rights Award at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, told Vogue, “The scarf was a part of my body. Unveiling was a long psychological process. I did not know the meaning of human rights at the age of seven, but it angered me that my brother, just two years older than me, could dash out of the door any time he wished, ride a bike, and swim in the river, but I, as a girl, was banned from doing all those things.” As expected, Alinejad’s campaign has received a lot of flak from her native Iran. She has been called a spy, and receives hate messages daily. Iran’s state-run television even fabricated a story that she had been raped in London while ‘she had been naked,’ a term for an unveiled woman, and accused her of being on drugs, according to her interview with Vogue. (Thankfully, none of the women or men who have written to Alinejad have been penalized in Iran.) But nothing can affect the impact of My Stealthy Freedom on the lives of Iranian women as numerous photographs are uploaded everyday with more and more women asserting their right to hold their heads high, literally.