Iran protests: Why the country's women are rebelling

Can this surge of women-led protests bring an end to 40 years of oppression?

The protests happening right now in Iran are the biggest the country has seen in years.

And they're being led by women - publicly cutting their own hair and burning their hijabs.

Thousands are taking to the streets in mass demonstrations against Iran's oppressive regime, following the death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini in police custody in September. 

Amini was detained by the so-called "morality police" after being caught in public wearing her veil incorrectly - a willful decision by Amini to show her hair in defiance of the conservative standards for women's dress enforced in Iran.

"This is a sign that the civil society of Iran is still very much alive despite the oppression of the last 40 years," says Negar Partow, a senior lecturer in security studies at Massey University.

The protests have not been without consequence. Hundreds of protesters and journalists covering the events have been killed, and internet has been knocked out across the country in an effort to prevent civilians spreading information and organising together.

Partow says there have been many protests of a similar scale in Iran in recent years. Following the 2009 presidential election, millions took to the streets to protest what they saw as a fraudulent result with the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad returned in a landslide victory.

"The uniqueness of this [protest], is that this is particularly a woman uprising, and is led by women, and is about gender-based violence," says Partow.

"Hijab in Iran is not only one rule that is imposed. It is actually one of the constitutive or idealistic laws of the Islamic Republic."

Partow grew up in Iran, and was a young girl when the 1979 revolution - which installed the current Islamic Republican government - took place.

She explains how Iran used to be a secular and progressive nation that emulated Western liberal culture. 

"All the legal advantages that women gained in the 1960s and 1950s, they lost overnight. 

"At the beginning of the revolution, it was about equality and gender equality, but as soon as the revolution succeeded, they lost all their rights. They lost the right of custody over their children, they lost the right of studying in many cases, and then they put in a constitutional law to say hijab is the idealistic symbol for the revolution.

"So it's not only important for Muslim women, or enforced on Muslim women, but it's comprehensive. So whatever religion you have in Iran, you have to wear the hijab," she says.

Despite this, there have always been women who resisted. Partow explains that Iran has created an economy around monitoring hijab compliance through the employment of military and police forces. 

The Islamic Republic of Iran developed three forms of security forces to ensure compliance: the volunteer forces, who are paid by the government specifically to conduct "moral policing" of women with the wearing of hijab in public; the revolutionary guards, who are charged with protecting the values of the revolution, including the use of hijab; and the police, for whom violating hijab regulations is a criminal offense.

"For people like me, who were brought up in non-religious families, the previous generations, like my mother and my aunty, continued to live quite a secular life privately.

"They would sometimes put up a fashion show for us, to show how they would walk before the revolution. And in a way they continued to pass those values of democracy and gender equality onto the next generation."

Partow tells The Detail how the Islamic Republic has controlled sex and sexuality and shares her thoughts on whether the current protests will be enough to bring down the regime.

Find out how to listen and subscribe to The Detail here.  

You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.