The Islamic regime’s attempt to humiliate a jailed student leader by photographing him in women’s clothes has backfired as a defiant campaign featuring Iranian men with their heads covered continues to gain strength and triggers a debate on gender equality. Opposition web sites have also reported that men will cover their heads at key moments during the upcoming mass rallies planned for the first ten days of the holy month of Moharram, December 18 to 27.
Although the tone of the movement was initially whimsical, it touched on more profound issues related to gender equality almost immediately. On Wednesday, December 9, one call to action on Facebook said, ‘The regime is trying to put pressure on the students’ struggle and the green movement of the people of Iran. But this is also an effort to belittle Iranian women. In order to prove that we are all Majid Tavakolis, in order to say that women’s clothes are not bad, but that it is obligatory hijabs which are wrong, and in order to make them understand that we are all together, please post photos of yourselves with a hijab.’
Iranian men, famous and unknown, responded in large numbers. By Thursday morning, Radio Farda counted at least 250 such photos on Facebook alone. Among the men posing with headscarves and implying that there is nothing wrong with being a woman was a strange volunteer : Babak Takhti. Babak is the son of Gholamreza Takhti, universally known as Jahan Pahlavan Takhti, po… >>>
