이란의 종교 민족주의 관점에서 본 여성의 머리카락과 히잡 연구

A study on women’s hair and hijab from the perspective of Iranian religious nationalism: Focusing on the 2022 anti-hijab protests

Since mid-September in 2022, anti-government protest sparked by anti-hijab protest have continued in Iran. Iranian women opposed the government’s compulsory hijab law with the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom”, and the scale of the protest mushroomed with participation of Iranian men and women in other countries through SNS. This study considered the less explored question of “why does women’s hair matter,” which triggered the current protest. Hair is a private component of the human body. However, it is revealed or hidden depending on the socio-cultural context, symbolizing women’s sexuality. Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, the Islamic regime has strengthened religious nationalism, and hijab has become a political tool. And now, it is even expanding into a security issue of the regime, as the government pinpointed the US and Israel as being the behind the protest. This study aims to identify the relation between women’s hair and politicized hijab within the discourse of religious nationalism, which control Iranian women at various levels. This study is meaningful in that it analyzes hair and sexuality from the perspective of the Islamic public patriarchal system and add a new case study to the discourse on hijab by interpreting it from the discourse of religious nationalism.