🗣Your answer to this question: “What did you feel the first time you went out without mandatory hijab?” — Wednesday, 25 Shahrivar:

🔹I’m in my forties. I couldn’t believe that I was experiencing that feeling of adolescence again.

🔹On the first times, I was a bit embarrassed.

🔹In Aban 1401, it was the first time I had gone out of the house without having a shawl with me, and my heart was pounding with fear the whole time. I had put on a hooded cover that if I had to, I could do something. But now wearing a shawl and headscarf is unusual for me.

🔹I felt independence and self-confidence.

🔹I felt a good sense of lightness.

🔹It’s interesting that I don’t even remember what my first time without a headscarf felt like. We were so angry and furious, and we took everything personally. Honestly, the support and decency of Iranian girls and men on this path helped a lot.

🔹My mother and I were born in a time when something called mandatory hijab didn’t exist. For 47 years, every time I left the house, I would forget my hijab and fight, every second, with the struggle of not having it fall off. For me, the first day of mandatory hijab being absent was the most natural thing.

🔹I had been throwing my shawl around my neck for quite a while. But the first time I went out without a shawl and the wind hit my hair, it felt very pleasurable and good. At the same time, I felt regret that I had to experience a pleasure I had at 20 years old at 40 years old.

🔹I felt intense fear, but seeing people like me reduced my fear and gave me more courage.

🔹The first time the wind hit my hair and my face and neck, I felt its pleasure—without having to, afterward, straighten my shawl and the tied-up hair underneath it. That same moment I understood that reaching freedom was worth all that fear and anxiety.