Iranian women’s courage must not be forgotten on International Women’s Day

By Marziyeh Amirizadeh, Op-ed contributor Sunday, March 08, 2026

While we celebrate International Women's Day on March 8, we must remember the many brave Iranian women who have endured decades of hardships under the harsh rules of Islam.

Today, we are seeing the fruits of their struggles and suffering. But the job is not done, and their suffering has not ended.

Under Islamic rules, Iranian women have been subjugated and suppressed for more than 47 years since the Ayatollah Khomeini took power in Iran. Iranian women lost all their rights after the revolution in 1979. The regime started suppressing women systematically and publicly through many misogynist laws, making women and women’s rights only half of that of men. Women are forced to wear a hijab from the age of 7.  Hundreds of thousands of Iranian women have been arrested in the streets, beaten up in public by “morality police,” and humiliated only for not having a proper Islamic hijab. One prominent example is Mahsa Amini, who was murdered in 2022 for allowing her hair to show. She was beaten mercilessly after her arrest, went into a coma, and died at the hands of her torturers.

The humiliation of women under the Islamic Republic runs deep in the regime’s DNA.

Many Iranian girls and women have been murdered by their fathers, brothers, or husbands in what they call “honor killings,” for which the men face no severe consequences because, under Islamic rules, there is no capital punishment against a male who kills their female relative for the purpose of their honor.

One of my personal examples is most telling. After I talked to my brother about my conversion to Christianity, he talked to a mullah about his confusion between Islam and Christianity, and mentioned my conversion to Christianity. The mullah told my brother to kill me, and he promised him there would be no punishment for him under the law of “honor killing.” There are countless other examples.

So, when I think about International Women’s Day, it reminds me of the suffering of millions of Iranian women like me. It reminds me of many horrible memories of being insulted and punished in school, and even at home by my brothers, who were brainwashed by the state to see me and all women as inferior. It reminds me of the gross harassment by men who would look at me as a whore. It reminds me that I lived 30 years in Iran, but I never had a chance to travel and visit my beautiful country because the hotels would not let women book a room alone.

It reminds me of the terrible stories from my students who had to accept the sick sexual advances and extortion by judges to be able to divorce their abusive husbands. Under Islam, if a woman is abused or beaten by her husband, there is no law to defend her.

Despite all these misogynistic Islamic laws, millions of Iranian women bravely fought against these harsh rules and did not submit. Many of them never gave up and tried to stand for their rights at any cost, even losing their lives.

We should not forget that the brave mothers of all these young children who were killed by the regime have turned their mourning into another form of defiance. Instead of crying, many mothers displayed their defiance by dancing at the funeral of their children. It is unbelievable that they found the courage to turn their sorrow and mourning into dance, to tell the Islamic regime that even the death of their children cannot stop them from fighting for their rights and freedom.

It is a shame that instead of making the Islamic regime accountable, the United Nations rewards them by giving them a seat to monitor women’s rights around the world. This is an obscene joke and another type of insult against Iranian women by the buffoons at the U.N.

On International Women’s Day, we must remember brave Iranian women who have no rights and have been targets of discrimination and abuse for so many years. We must remember the high price that they are paying every day just to survive. We must remember many Iranian women who have no voice. Whose lives have been ruined by violence and discrimination.

I salute Iranian women on this day for being the true symbol of courageous resistance and dignity under the harshest circumstances. I pray that they receive their long-awaited deliverance and freedom soon. It cannot come soon enough.