In the winter of 2017, a young woman called Vida Movahed stood on top of a utility box on Revolution Street, a busy artery of central Tehran, and dangled her white headscarf on a stick. As an act of dissent, it was strikingly peaceful, giving the appearance of a white flag of surrender. Still, by not wearing her hijab, Movahed was challenging the system’s dress codes. She stayed there for an hour, until she was arrested for breaking the law. Imagery of her silent, brave act raced around Instagram. A month later, a graduate student named Narges Hosseini performed the same defiant act on the same street. Soon, more women launched similar protests, and their movement took the name of where it all began: #TheGirlsofRevolutionStreet.
When I lived in Tehran in my early 20s, writing a TIME column called “Lipstick Jihad,” we used to flout the rules by wearing brilliant colors and tighter and shorter overcoats, pushing against the gloomy black and navy of official dress codes, and bringing some individuality within the bounds of attire that was meant to erase distinctiveness. It was a way of refusing to be a model Islamic citizen, of showing the state that its plan had failed, and that we rejected its conservative vision of women as dutiful
