‘Woman, Life, Freedom’: Marjane Satrapi shows freedom is incomplete without women’s liberation

In September 2022, a routine event took place in the streets of Tehran. A young woman, found in violation of the established moral code by the morality police, was detained. But no one had anticipated what it would become: three days later, as news of her death due to the police-inflicted wounds broke, protestors swelled up in the streets in stunning numbers, calling for an end to the violently oppressive regime that had spent decades exercising draconian, authoritarian rule in the garb of religious orthodoxy.

In Woman, Life, Freedom, Marjane Satrapi brings together writers, artists, activists, and scholars to situate the events of that September in the broader context of Iranian politics, and give readers a peek into the many facets of life in the months, days, and hours in which a revolution takes its first breaths. How does the anger and frustration of a people find a voice?

Stories of revolution

Mahsa Jina Amini was twenty-two years old, visiting her relatives in Tehran with her family. Having taken off her headscarf while walking in the city, she was caught by the state-sanctioned morality police and taken to their offices in a van. Though officials later claimed that Amini had preexisting health complications, the truth was clear to anyone who had suffered the excesses of this system before, or simply observed the Iranian political scene over the last couple of decades – punishment in this system is symbolic, a woman must be hit where she has sinned; Amini’s failure to put on a headscarf had meant brutal blows to her head, resulting in her skull cracking.

As pictures of her mourning family made their way to the internet thanks to a brave journalist – also later penalised – women took to the streets in large numbers, taking their headscarves off, burning them, storming the internet with pictures of red-hot fury. As the movement gained momentum, in part because the dam of women waiting for change gave way, and in part, because it was popular in the true sense of the word with the widespread participation of men, the world was forced to look and take notice.

In boxes of bold colours and simple words, distinct stories are told. Often within a few pages, occasionally across a bigger spread, the lines of a world are masterfully etched and left for the reader to ponder. We read about the colleges where female students challenged gendered segregation at every point and homes where the topic of the scarf detonates something that can no longer be contained. Then there is the delicate art of protest: how to send a signal, where to assemble, when to run for shelter, every part of the machine required discreet assembly and dismantling. This disjointedness serves the narrative well – the reactions are a jumble, a tapestry of shock and fear, desperation and courage; when we find ourselves too steeped in the action of the moment, lessons in history situate it within the context of the many roads that have lead to the present.

Calling out the old gods

Some jarring details emerge, such as: “Since November 2022, over one thousand young school girls have been poisoned by toxic gas in schools across Iran.” At other points, pages upon pages become memorials to those who died fighting for days they could only hope their compatriots would soon see. In the name of religion, in the name of tradition, in the name of the nation – many great gods have been propped up to protect a status quo that demands the joy and the blood of those that they claim to serve; and Woman, Life, Freedom calls them out bravely. The different works together attempt to capture a moment in time defined not just by the tragedy that prompted it, but also by the sheer potential of anger that fuels it.

With great attention to detail, contributors to the book highlight how Iran – another victim of what citizens have come to call the curse of the black gold, referring to the oil-rich countries of the region finding themselves in long-term geopolitical crisis – is more than what popular Western news outlets make it out to be. In the little snippets of life we catch in these panels, we are left wondering about all the other things that it could be. Taking readers through the aftermath of the historic protests, if there are moments of despair, or when the sense of direction is blurry, there is always a definite momentum towards change – charged with hope, resolute in the belief of better.

“Woman life freedom” was a chant first raised by Kurdish women in the late 20th century, creating between the three words a kind of life-blood, the condition of each inextricably tied to that of the other. Its appeal is no doubt in the powerful rhetoric it is able to create, but also perhaps in the simple truth that it invokes. The patchwork of tales and anecdotes in Woman, Life, Freedom is an invitation to empathise, to hold fiercely and tenderly this moment of possibility, and to fight for the belief that all tyrants fall.

Woman, Life, Freedom, curated by Marjane Satrapi, translated from the French by Una Dimitrijevic, Seven Stories Press.