Emancipation of women is making strides both in Iran and Saudi Arabia. In December last year, Vida Mohaveed stood bareheaded at a traffic intersection in Tehran waving her headscarf on a stick. She symbolized freedom of the fair sex in Iran. The move has been afoot for quite some time setting back the obscurantism preached by an all-powerful Khomeini. In May last year a US-based Iranian journalist Masih Ali Najad started the White Wednesday movement on the Facebook. She called upon women to wear white on Wednesdays and to throw away headscarves in public places. It was to flout the Hijab law enforced on women in backward Islamic countries. But evidently Mohaveed’s public display of defiance is an isolated piece of action and it will take time for it to turn into a widespread movement. The Hijab was enforced by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. It was intended to whittle away at women’s rights in Iran while previously it had a westernized queen. President Hassan Rouhani liberalized the fatwa. It is no longer mandatory in Tehran though the rest of the country is still controlled by it. In Saudi Arabia, the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman has announced progressive reforms. In a kingdom known for subjugation of women, they have been assured greater freedom and greater participation in public life. They can drive and achieve enhanced job opportunities. The headscarf is to be optional.
All this does not apply to some other Islamic countries in West Asia. In Syria, for instance, women not only fight shoulder to shoulder with men. In one region, there is self-rule without a government and in the people’s Parliament, women have as much say as their men folk.
