Iranian women are now in the “vanguard” against the “super-arbitrary theocratic regime.”

Six months ago this week, Mahsa Amini was arrested on charges of violating Iran’s strict dress code for women. She was dead a few days later, prompting the largest protests in the country in years. As Iranians continue their anti-government protests during the Iran Fire Festival, albeit disjointedly, FRANCE 24 is joined by Farhad Khosrokhavar, writer, Franco-Iranian sociologist and director of research at EHESS and chair of the sociology of contemporary Iran. He has noticed a real paradigm shift throughout this region, which he finds “paradoxical”. He argues that “in the Middle East and in the Muslim world, women were the vanguard. For the first time in the history of social movements in the region, women initiated this movement. And then young men joined them. traditional notions of honor, of the superiority of men over women, were challenged, and both opposed what might be called an “over-depressive theocratic regime.”