By Dr. Azar Sepehr
March 8th is a day to renew our commitment to the struggle for gender equality, and a world free from poverty, violence, discrimination, injustice and environmental destruction.
The first commemoration of this day took place more than a century ago, in 1911. By 1975 the UN had officially recognised this day as International Women’s Day, with a call on all governments to secure women’s rights and fight gender-based inequalities. In 2025, the battle still continues.
As wars rage in different parts of the world, often to subvert the will of the people, to exploit their natural resources, or gain geopolitical advantage, women and their children suffer disproportionately from this violence. The recent rush to increase military budgets, following the threats from the extremist Trump administration, at the expense of services that benefit the people, is a serious threat especially to the working class and women.
In Iran, in addition to the economic challenges that we face due to the regime’s neoliberal policies, as well as the punitive Western sanctions, the theocratic regime has imposed its reactionary political Islam on all aspects of life and thus redefining the role of women as that of second-class citizens. They have done irreparable harm to the country by imposing a dictatorship based on religious dogma and superstition, and subverted the Revolution of 1979, soon after they consolidated their power.
It is more than a century since the first celebration of 8th March was held in the northern city of Rasht in March 1923. Despite the harsh conditions they face, Iranian women have proved to be vanguards in the struggle for fundamental changes in our country. Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, women’s battles have included demanding:
- A ban on polygamy,
- The right to divorce, to the custody of children, right of travel without permission of husband or male guardian, Equal inheritance rights.
- Prohibition of child marriage
- An end to compulsory hejab, and freedom to choose one’s clothing.
The women’s movement has been one of the strongest and most effective in the popular struggle in Iran. The One Million Signatures petition, that demanded the removal of misogynist articles from the Constitution was the first of many successful campaigns.
The regular protests and actions by women, whether as part of the broader protest movement for change or for women’s rights, culminated in 2022-23 with the nationwide ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ protests. This movement was qualitatively different, by the fact that women took a leading position, and it soon linked the demand for women’s rights to the call for an end to dictatorship and for democratic rights.
Young women spearheaded the movement that for more than six months traversed all 31 provinces and actively challenged the theocracy. More than 600 activists were gunned down in the streets, or were executed.
Protests have continued in various forms over the past two years despite the regime’s crackdowns. Currently, the clerical regime’s social base is put at a maximum of 20%. A poll of ‘Iranians’ Values and Attitudes’ in 2024, found a deep desire among the population to separate religion from the state.
The Woman, Life, Freedom movement was significant in the way it connected with several strata in society and demonstrated its readiness to link to the labour, youth and peace movements.
Despite detentions, torture, and lengthy prison sentences, Iranian women continue to pursue diverse initiatives in the struggle. They continue to defy the order to wear the hejab, in the face of continued violence by the regime’s henchmen.
The most courageous resistance has come from women political prisoners and their protests and hunger strikes against the death sentences passed on political prisoners. They have started the “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign and declared their solidarity with all protests opposing capital punishment across the country’s prisons. In July 2024, women political prisoners staged a sit-in in the Women’s Ward of the notorious Evin prison, in protest against the death sentences passed on Pakhshan Azizi, Varisheh Moradi, and Sharifeh Mohammadi. The sentences and executions are seen as an act of revenge against the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. The Mothers for Justice are another voice of protest against all types of state violence, with many living in the shadow of open “security cases” against them or imprisoned.
Today, as the extreme right-wing government of Israel that has been responsible for the massacre of more than 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza alone, shamelessly threatens Iran with destruction and taking it back decades, the Iranian women’s struggle against the authoritarian, misogynistic regime, co-exists with a resounding cry of ‘No to War’, No to Foreign Intervention’.
Alongside women human rights activists, political prisoners, the Mothers of Khavaran, retirees, teachers, nurses, workers and labourers, housewives, students, and others, we continue the fight for the elimination of gender oppression, for freedom, equality, peace, and social justice.
Long live international solidarity. Forward to a world free from war!
Dr. Azar Sepehr is a spokesperson for the Democratic Organisation of Iranian Women (DOIW) – Iran’s largest and most well-established progressive women’s organisation still in existence, viewed well by much of civil society there. Originally founded in 1943 simply as the Organisation of Iranian Women (OIW), against the backdrop of a fiercely conservative and male-dominated political scene and society, the organisation went on to join the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) in 1947. Chiefly concerned with pushing for radical changes in the laws governing the rights and standing of women in the family and workplace, the organisation was banned repeatedly before being suppressed in the Islamic Republic’s purging of the country’s left in the early 1980s.
This is a lightly edited version of the speech delivered by Dr. Azar Sepehr on behalf of the Democratic Organisation of Iranian Women at an International Women’s Day meeting organised by Liberation and held in Portcullis House, Westminster parliament, 5 March 2025
The views expressed in the articles published on this website do not necessarily represent those of Liberation.
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Photo: Taymaz Valley from Ottawa, Canada, CC BY 2.0
