Contrary to Western corporate media reports, the protests in Iran are not simply about the “morality police”—they represent a rejection of the structural social, political, and juridical relations that systematically reproduce capitalist patriarchy combined with Islamist codes.
Hijab has nothing to do with “women’s culture” in the Middle East, as some postcolonial thinkers imply. In the context of the Islamic Republic, Hijab is a method of class domination, an integral part of capitalist patriarchy, and must be criticized without compromise.
Corporate media in the West (for example, the BBC Persian and Iran International) as well as celebrity activists like Masih Alinejad (who work with the most conservative forces in the United States, those in favor of prohibiting abortion and “regime change” via military intervention) are doing their best to promote the reactionary trends within the movement, reducing the whole problem to the question of “human rights.” They mispresent the social relations that emerge from the structures of capitalist societies as merely juridical ones.
Beginning of the end of the regime? Too early to state that.
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