Iran Protests: A Feminist Social Movement

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On September 16^th, a young Iranian woman of Kurdish origin, Mahsa Amini, died after being arrested by Iran’s Guidance Patrol – the morality police – for wearing her hijab too loosely. Her death triggered a wave of protests throughout the country. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh, Fellow of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University, to understand the origins of this “feminist social movement”, its potential outcomes, and its implications for forming a new social foundation for Iran.

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Kian Tajbakhsh (Ph.D. Columbia 1993) is a Senior Advisor at Global Centers Columbia University. In this role, Dr. Tajbakhsh works on university-wide initiatives focused on global migration and is the Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration. He is also a Fellow with Columbia’s Committee on Global Thought where since 2016 he has taught the core course in the Global Thought MA program “Globalization and the Problems of World Order.” From 2016-2018 he was Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia. His book Creating Local Democracy In Iran: State-Building and the Politics of Decentralization was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022.