روسری

The cultural and political weight of روسری in modern Iran is impossible to skip. Compulsory hejâb laws were enacted after the 1979 revolution and codified in 1983, requiring all women in public to cover their hair. The Gasht-e Ershâd ("Guidance Patrol"), commonly translated as the morality police, enforces dress code in public spaces. In September 2022, Mahsa Jina Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, died in custody three days after being arrested by the morality police in Tehran for an alleged hejâb violation. Her death set off the Zan, Zendegi, Âzâdi ("Woman, Life, Freedom") protest movement, the largest sustained anti-government protests in Iran since the 1979 revolution. The روسری, an everyday object for most of the world, sits at the center of that ongoing political reality. Many Iranian women wear it loosely, push it back, or remove it in private as a quiet statement; many wear it by choice for religious or personal reasons. The word itself is neutral. The garment, in modern Iran, is anything but.