The page didn’t turn but American women aren’t going back
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The US presidential election [that delivered America’s White House to Donald Trump] produced social, regional, cultural and ideological cacophony, which was somehow channelled into a binary choice (unless you ducked the contest by voting for a third party). But I couldn’t help thinking about a woman who wasn’t on any ballot and who couldn’t vote in this election—a woman whose very existence is in jeopardy because politics went badly askew and took her dignity and freedom with it.
You can see her in a video, which surfaced in recent days, revealing her sitting next to a potted plant beside an outdoor stairway at Azad University in Tehran. It seems she took all she could take. Her clothes appear to be piled behind her.
Dressed only in her underwear, without a mandatory hijab, she rises and walks, arms folded across her abdomen, pacing like a caged animal. Some passersby gawk, others pretend not to notice. Her uncovered hair flows nearly to her waist—an Iranian Rapunzel seeking to flee the tower in which the women of her land are captives.
Defiance in the theocratic state of Iran, especially by a woman, is an invitation to torture and death. A 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, died in 2022 after being arrested by the morality police, allegedly for her insufficiently deferential approach to headgear. Many more have died in aborted attempts at freedom over the past decade and more.
The state thugs eventually seized the half-naked woman in the video, as well, as she surely knew they would. I hope she survives. The Iranian government described her as “troubled," which seems true enough.
Read more on livemint.com
