#MenInHijab

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About

#MenInHijab is a social media hashtag and political activist campaign in which Iranian men post photographs of themselves wearing the traditional Muslim veil known as the "hijab," in protest of Iranian laws requiring women wear the head scarf in public.

Origin

In May 2014, Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad launched the My Stealthy Freedom Facebook^[1]^[2] campaign for women to share photographs of themselves without wearing the hijab. On July 22nd, 2016, Ainejad launched the #MenInHijab hashtag on Instagram, encouraging men to post photographs of themselves wearing the veil as a sign of solidarity with women in Iran (shown below).^[4]

Precursor: "Be A Man" Campaign

In December 2009, during the height of the Green Movement across the Islamic Republic of Iran, prominent college student and political activist Majid Tavakoli was arrested after giving a speech at the Student Day protest in Tehran. Later that day, state-run news agencies reported that he was arrested by the security forces as he sought to flee the campus site “disguised as a woman,” accompanied by a photograph of him dressed in headscarf and robes. Outraged by the false allegations of the state propaganda, hundreds of Iranian men began updating their Facebook profiles with hijabs around their faces in display of solidarity for the imprisoned activist, which soon snowballed into a social media campaign dubbed "Be a Man" or "Free Majid Tavakoli."

Spread

Over the next week, Iranian men began posting pictures of themselves wearing hijabs along with the hashtag #MenInHijab,^[6] some of which were featured on the My Stealthy Freedom Facebook page (shown below).^[7]^[8]

On July 28th, The Independent^[5] published an interview with Alinejad, in which she argued that Iran's hijab laws were oppressive to women. On August 4th, Redditor kashayaar submitted a montage of #MenInHijab photos to the /r/pics^[3] subreddit, where it gathered upwards of 2,700 votes (87% upvoted) and 190 comments. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the hashtag, including ABC News,^[9] Mashable,^[10] Allure^[11] and Inc.^[12]