The hijab is not simply a piece of cloth. It is one visible expression of a wider system through which women’s bodies become sites of authority, discipline and control.
In this episode of Bread and Roses TV, Maryam Namazie and Fariborz Pooya ask why women’s bodies have become such a public issue. Why are women made responsible for honour, morality, religion, culture and national identity? Why are women expected to carry society on their shoulders?
From compulsory hijab and child veiling to purity culture, abortion bans and sex apartheid, the programme examines how control is presented as protection, obedience as virtue and submission as choice. Looking at examples from Iran and Afghanistan, including the resistance of women confronting both the Islamic regime of Iran and the Taliban, it explores what interests are served when women are denied authority over their own lives. It also examines how attempts to regulate and control women are not confined to religious power, but can also be found within sections of the opposition, from the Mujahedin and monarchists to parts of the Left.
Drawing on the work of Jo Spence and the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, the programme argues that the struggle over hijab is not fundamentally about a piece of cloth. It is about power. It is about who owns women’s bodies.
