1979 International Women's Day protests in Tehran

On International Women's Day on March 8, 1979, a women's march took place in Tehran in Iran. The march was originally intended to celebrate the International Women's Day, but transformed into massive protests against the changes taking place in women's rights during the Iranian revolution, specifically the introduction of mandatory hijab (veiling), which had been announced the day before. The protests lasted for six days, from 8 March to 14 March 1979, with thousands of women participating. The protests were met with violence and intimidation by pro-Khomeini Islamist forces.

The clerical-led Islamist faction at the time, lacking the capacity and hegemony to marginalize rival political contenders, were forced into retreat following the protests as far as these goals were concerned. Shortly after however, the Islamist faction mobilised Islamist women to rally on behalf of the new political and social order that they wished to implement. By June 1981, the greater part of Iran's liberal and leftist political spectrum was destroyed by the pro-Khomeini faction. Then, in 1983, the Iranian parliament (Majles) approved of a law "punishing women who refused to comply with state-enforced veiling". Ever since, such laws that favour mandatory veiling have become a key point in "policing women's political activism and dissidence", and have given Iran's post-1979 leadership a convenient pretext to "harass, intimidate, assault, and imprison women activists from across the ideological spectrum".