Exploring the Comprehensive Surveillance Strategies of the Iranian Government to Control Women's Attire Post the Women, Life, Freedom Movement

ABSTRACT The comprehensive surveillance system, expanded today through technology, provides a more precise form of monitoring and control over citizens, enabling a unified and controlling approach for a totalitarian government. To counter the women's freedom movement against mandatory hijab, the Iranian government has enacted and enforced restrictive laws that not only fully monitor women's attire in various social units but also strip them of their social freedom. This study, through a comparative examination of deterrent laws such as the Chastity and Hijab Bill and the employment of hijab monitors in public places, closely investigates the government's surveillance measures to control hijab based on Foucault's panoptic theory. According to the findings of this research, the control of women opposing mandatory hijab across different societal units in Iran by the morality police or hijab enforcers leads to a feeling of constant individual surveillance, ultimately resulting in self‐regulation. These disciplinary actions are part of a larger disciplinary project of an oppressive and unjust system that reproduces sexual subjugation.