The Boston City Council on Wednesday agreed to mark an official “Day of Woman, Life and Freedom” in connection with ongoing women’s rights protests in Iran, shifting after international pushback to a councilor’s original proposal to recognize women’s right to self-expression via a citywide Hijab Day.
Last week, Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson offered a resolution calling for “Boston's Hijab Day,” which said it is the council's responsibility to “call for the freedom of women's self-expression to cover or not cover their hair, for the women of Iran and across the world.” In the week since, Fernandes Anderson's resolution has made waves internationally, with the Jerusalem Post saying the move “has sparked considerable outrage.”
Fernandes Anderson, who is Boston’s first Muslim city councilor, offered an updated resolution Wednesday changing the name of the day. She said her office had received calls and emails from Los Angeles, London, Paris, Australia and Iran, and that using the phrase “Hijab Day” had “overshadowed the intent of the resolution and “distressed those who are or have been impacted by Iran’s oppressive regime.”
“It was my intention in the council to bring home the point that no government has the right to force women to wear a headscarf, and neither do they have the right to regulate how women should choose to wear a headscarf,” she said. “It should be up to each individual woman whether or not they will wear a head covering, for this is a personal decision that no one besides a woman should have a say in, let alone a government.”
Both of Fernandes Anderson’s versions of resolutions recognized the September birthday of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman who died last month in the custody of Iranian authorities often referred to as the “morality police.” Amini had been arrested for allegedly wearing a hijab in a way that did not comply with strict government standards, and her death sparked a series of protests across Iran where women in some cases have burned their hijabs, cut their hair and chanted slogans translating to “Woman, Life, Freedom.”
The resolution the council passed Wednesday recognizes Sept. 23 in honor of Mahsa Amini and says brave women throughout history “have fought and died to oppose a second-class status and to gain their liberation.”
