Abstract:
The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement started with the murder of Mahsa-Jina Amini and the protest against the behavior of the Sharia police (Gashte Ershad), with the call of women’s rights activists to protest against this action, and continued with various calls for at least 100 days throughout Iran. This study examines the agency of Iranian women in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement and its outcomes. This research is exploratory, using the qualitative method and a semi-structured interview. In this research, 19 Iranian women were interviewed, including 16 inside Iran and three outside the country. These interviews are conducted in order to find out the different types of agency of Iranian women in this movement. The findings demonstrate that Iranian women have performed all kinds of activism, which in this study is categorized as symbolic, physical, caregiving, legalistic, and cognitive activism. Turning women into political signifiers, raising women’s rights again, making women visible, increasing religious tolerance, giving women more control over their bodies, changing the position of anti-feminists, spontaneous organization, hope for change from within, and a promising future. are among the categories that are extracted from interviews with these women.
