Being a woman in Iran: Lived constraints, desired change, and calls for Allyship

Gender inequality in Iran has been argued to persist through discriminatory laws, state-enforced moral codes, and social surveillance, and the risks attached to public expression intensified after the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom mobilisations. Yet empirical work that demonstrates Iranian women's own accounts of how these constraints are lived, and what change and allyship could mean in practice, remains limited. This study analyses anonymous open-ended survey responses from 26 Iranian women recruited using social media in September 2022. Using thematic analysis, we examined (1) lived experiences of gender inequality and state oppression, (2) participants' priorities for systemic change, and (3) women's expectations of men's allyship. Participants described oppression as an everyday experience organised around visibility through the regulation of dress and movement, gatekeeping, and inequity in legal standing. Women discussed change as something that was limited by the systems and culture they lived in and called for enforceable legal equity, broader civil freedoms, and shifts in gender norms. Men's allyship was identified as needed for change, even if only as a form of public solidarity, including willingness to share risk. The findings help clarify what “support” actually means in practice from women's perspectives in a context as politically volatile as Iran.