How the Islamic Republic Has Responded to Everyday Resistance Against the Mandatory Hijab: Making Sense of Five Pro-Hijab Contentions in Iran (1988–2022)

How do gender anxieties shape pro-state and/or state-led contentions (SLCs)? Taking cues from several theoretical and methodological traditions, I develop a gender-driven theory of SLCs. Drawing on anxieties on the hijab among revolutionary pro-state (aka pro-regime) actors, factions, and organizations in Iran from 1988 until 2022, I discuss how the Islamic Republic (IR) responded to everyday grassroots resistance against pro-mandatory hijab policies. The IR’s various contentions include pro-hijab rallies; violent actions by individuals with vague ties to the various bodies of the IR; strict policies; harsh rhetoric; and non-threatening, non-violent performances. Building on my own unique longitudinal newspaper data set, I demonstrate how these five types of SLC shaped the IR’s hijab ideology, albeit with occasional flexibilities. Highlighting SLCs is important because research on everyday resistance by ordinary civilians has overlooked various contentions by states, which yield consequential outcomes. Going beyond pro-state street rallies, I argue that the growing research on state-led mobilizations must take various gendered policies, rhetoric, performances, and individual acts of violence into consideration.