Iran and Feminist Contributions to the Peace System 

“After Mahsa, everything now depends on a strand of hair.” A very striking sentence written by protesters on a wall in Tehran. Listen to the women's slogans: Jin Jiyan Azadi.

22-year-old teenager Mahsa Jina Amini was tortured to death by the Iranian "morality police" on September 16. The moral police were established in 2005. Its job description is to monitor the use of the headscarf, which is compulsory for women according to the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran, on the streets and to warn women who do not comply with this law by detaining them. After this process, the detained women are released only after being handed over by the male members of their families – that is, their fathers, husbands, or older brothers. Unfortunately, as we can see from the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini, the morality police can not only interfere with how women dress but also resort to various forms of torture, up to killing women. Here is the most tangible example of patriarchy leading to violence. Mahsa Amani was accused of not wearing the headscarf properly. This murder influences a mass popular uprising led by women, which unleashed a revolutionary process against the dictatorial regime. Women, who took the lead in the actions that started after Amini's death, took to the streets in many cities of the country, took off their headscarves, and paved the way for the mobilization of other sections of the working people by rebelling against the sharia oppression, patriarchal violence, and capitalist exploitation they had experienced under the 43-year dictatorship regime. “Woman, life, freedom!” slogan, "Abolish the moral police, close the Ministry of Irshad!", "Besic get out!" Around their demands, women, youth, workers, and working people in almost all cities took part in the protests by targeting the institutions of the regime. The efforts of the Mullah regime, the Revolutionary Guards army of it, and the forces of Besic to suppress the masses through violence made the women's and the people's movement an identity that directly directed the regime itself. In this process, the regime murdered nearly 500 people and arrested more than 15 thousand people. The revolt brought on by Amini's murder has led women in Iran to unite against the fear of 43 years of oppression and patriarchal violence.

The Iranian people have struggled against patriarchal violence, against the capitalist exploitation regime as an extension of patriarchy, and ultimately against the mullah regime. The suppression of the "Green Movement" represented by former President Khatami in 2009 by the conservative wing brought along a process of repression in the country. However, the repressive process resulted in the death of many activists, which led to stagnation in the people. In addition, the “White Wednesdays” movement of Iranian women against the patriarchal state and its mandatory hijab law has also strengthened the groundwork for Iranian women's movements. Against the regime that does not tolerate any organization on the legal ground, women have developed their own unique methods of struggle. “Woman, life, freedom!”, “Death to the dictator!”, “Death to the oppressor, whether he is a guide or a king!” This spontaneous mobilization of Iranian working women, which is revealed in their slogans, has been continuing non-stop for about three months. The regime's massacres and the terror of arrests cause the people, especially women, to increase their struggle instead of pushing them back. On the one hand, a patriarchal understanding of the state, which is at the top of the hierarchy, on the other, a feminist movement that seeks equal rights and is pro-peace against exploitation, institutionalized sexism, and patriarchal violence. The murder of women and the ideologies that want to continue this situation make the strong link between patriarchy and militarism/war visible. The mullahs, who know that his regime will not be able to stand if it backs down from its policies of oppression and violence, continue to increase their pressure to intimidate women. Women who want a safe space and non-violent institutions against this oppressive regime continue their struggle to replace patriarchy with gender equality to ensure security. Our main argument is that human security cannot be ensured in an international system in which war and violence are seen as legitimate instrument of national security policy. The result of this argument is that if war and its legitimacy are to be eliminated, the patriarchal mentality should be replaced by feminist theory, that is, with a humane egalitarian approach.