Weeks after the Iranian Revolution toppled the Shah, Khomeini declared women should observe Islamic dress in government offices, prompting mass demonstrations by women who had supported the revolution but rejected mandatory veiling. The protests, some of the largest women's rights demonstrations in Iranian history, ultimately failed to reverse the policy as the new government consolidated control over women's dress and public life.
Only a month after the Shah's government collapsed, many Iranian women who had marched alongside men to overthrow the monarchy found themselves confronting a new authority questioning their basic freedoms. On March 7, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini announced that women should wear modest Islamic covering, particularly in government workplaces, reversing decades of state-encouraged unveiling under the Pahlavi dynasty.
On March 8 and 9, tens of thousands of women, including students, professionals, and secular activists, poured into the streets of Tehran chanting 'freedom is neither Eastern nor Western, it is universal.' Some marched to Tehran University, others to government ministries, arguing that they had not risked their lives against the Shah only to be told what to wear by the new regime.
Counter-demonstrators and Islamist supporters of Khomeini confronted the marchers, and the protests, despite their scale, failed to reverse the trajectory of policy. Within a few years, the hijab became legally mandatory for all women in Iran, a requirement that remains a flashpoint of resistance and protest in the country to this day.