Gendered Spatial Injustice: Use of Urban Spaces by Iranian Women
Mohammad Reza Shah ruled Iran prior to 1979. His main goal was good relations with the United States and westernisation of Iranian society (Iranian Revolution of 1979, 1994). He created opportunities for women to advance in the administration and be involved in decision-making processes. Women could dress as they wished and follow the fashions of the time. The Shah focused on improving levels of higher education and allowed people to behave in a more secular manner. His focus on westernisation sparked opposition and he ignored poorer regions. Anti-western Islamist movements led the revolution in 1979, the establishment of the Islamic Republic and an ultra-conservative religious regime. One of the earliest acts was that women gradually lost their basic rights, with the requirement to be veiled being an early and especially symbolic effect, and that freedom for young people of both sexes to meet became strictly limited, a trend that has continued until now when women are demonstrating for their freedom (Kazmir, 2019).
