Nahid Siamdoust On Revolution In Iran Through Its Women And Music

By Jerome McDonnell, Steve Bynum
An Iranian woman chants slogan as she holds a copy of the Quran, Islam’s holy book, in a demonstration of religious citizens to protest against non-observance of Islamic dress code in northern Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 12, 2014. Some 500 people attended the rally calling upon officials to take harsher actions against women with loose headscarves and tight clothes. As the summer has approached and weather gets hot, many women wear colorful, more comfortable clothes and loose headscarves, a fashion that some traditional religious people and hard-liners refer to “bad hijab” and view as an imported Western culture. Under the country’s current Islamic regulations, women should cover themselves head to toe, with their faces allowed to show. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
An Iranian woman chants slogan as she holds a copy of the Quran, Islam's holy book, in a demonstration of religious citizens to protest against non-observance of Islamic dress code in northern Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 12, 2014. Some 500 people attended the rally calling upon officials to take harsher actions against women with loose headscarves and tight clothes. As the summer has approached and weather gets hot, many women wear colorful, more comfortable clothes and loose headscarves, a fashion that some traditional religious people and hard-liners refer to "bad hijab" and view as an imported Western culture. Under the country's current Islamic regulations, women should cover themselves head to toe, with their faces allowed to show. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
An Iranian woman chants slogan as she holds a copy of the Quran, Islam’s holy book, in a demonstration of religious citizens to protest against non-observance of Islamic dress code in northern Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 12, 2014. Some 500 people attended the rally calling upon officials to take harsher actions against women with loose headscarves and tight clothes. As the summer has approached and weather gets hot, many women wear colorful, more comfortable clothes and loose headscarves, a fashion that some traditional religious people and hard-liners refer to “bad hijab” and view as an imported Western culture. Under the country’s current Islamic regulations, women should cover themselves head to toe, with their faces allowed to show. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
An Iranian woman chants slogan as she holds a copy of the Quran, Islam's holy book, in a demonstration of religious citizens to protest against non-observance of Islamic dress code in northern Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 12, 2014. Some 500 people attended the rally calling upon officials to take harsher actions against women with loose headscarves and tight clothes. As the summer has approached and weather gets hot, many women wear colorful, more comfortable clothes and loose headscarves, a fashion that some traditional religious people and hard-liners refer to "bad hijab" and view as an imported Western culture. Under the country's current Islamic regulations, women should cover themselves head to toe, with their faces allowed to show. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Nahid Siamdoust On Revolution In Iran Through Its Women And Music

By Jerome McDonnell, Steve Bynum
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Last month, women in Iran took to the streets of the capital, Tehran, in protest over the right to choose whether to wear the hijab.

Some women have publicly removed their headscarves in defiance of Iran’s strict Islamic dress code. The ongoing protests have been called “White Wednesdays.” While women defied secret police and security forces, they sang and played protest songs, mostly from Iran’s music underground. 

Nahid Siamdoust is a postdoctoral associate at Yale University’s Iranian Studies program. She’s author of the book, Soundtrack of the Revolution: The Politics of Music in Iran. Siamdoust discussed the revolutionary spirit of Iranian women and played some of the tracks that have inspired resistance in Iran since the Islamic Revolution. Her podcast on the topic is 10 Songs That Define Modern Iran.