Iran International
An annual cultural celebration of women and mothers in Iran falling on the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad's daughter Fatimah has galvanized critics of the theocracy's rights record for women even as supporters come to its defense.
After the 1979 revolution, the holiday replaced the pre-revolution tradition of observing Mother’s Day on December 15 as well as March 8, International Women’s Day.
The official website of Iran’s Supreme Leader published a message praising Fatimah as a model of “piety, justice-seeking, jihad, guidance, wifehood and motherhood.”
Across the country this year, state schools and government offices held ceremonies honoring Fatimah’s virtues and celebrating mothers and women, complete with religious speeches. The Social Security Organization also distributed a small cash gift—worth roughly $10—to women covered by retirement support programs.
But many women — and some men — responded to the government’s pageantry with sharp criticism.
'Absurd without rights'
A woman named Homa Dokht challenged the very premise of the day, pointing to Fatimah’s childhood marriage in a video posted on X.
Congratulating Mother’s Day on Fatimah’s birthday is absurd, she argued, because it is tantamount to endorsing child marriage, referring to accounts that place Fatimah’s marriage at age nine and childbirth around age ten.
“In a country where women and girls are deprived of their most basic rights, congratulating this day is foolish,” she added, highlighting systemic legal inequalities faced by Iranian women.
“For the smallest things — like enrolling children in school, opening a bank account for them, or even getting their exam results — only the father is qualified (legally),” she said. “And if a child needs surgery, only the father’s or paternal grandfather’s signature is valid.”
For activists, the contrast between state-sanctioned celebrations and daily lived realities encapsulates a central grievance: symbolic reverence for motherhood does not translate into legal equality.
Iran mandates women wear the Islamic face veil, even as enforcement had slackened in recent year. A young woman named Mahsa Amini whose death in morality police custody stoked mass protests in 2022. The unrest was quashed with deadly force.
Iranian law, which Islamic authorities say is based on religious precepts, systematically prioritizes men in criminal, family and financial cases.
Gender equality activist Leila Forough Mohammadi wrote on X: “On a day named for women, a single woman, a divorced woman, a woman without children simply does not exist — as if she is incomplete.
"Here, the system defines the woman only as spouses, and bestows the highest status on a woman whose reproductive role serves the population policy,” she added.
Iran ranks 143 out of 146 countries in the latest World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report.
Amnesty International has documented systemic gender discrimination in Iran in its 2024 report, including up to 74 lashes for defying hijab rules and frequent impunity for honor killings.
Mansoureh Hosseini Yeganeh, a women’s rights activist based in the UK, wrote: “We want not just Mother’s Day, but child custody rights, the right to obtain a birth certificate for our children, the right to leave the country, government support, citizenship respect, and all the things mothers enjoy in other civilized countries. And we want gifts too!”
“What Mother’s Day?” journalist Maryam Shokrani asked: “when mothers and women in this country are deprived of their most basic rights, when you don’t even include their names on their children’s birth certificates, when they have no custody … You should be ashamed!”
Men in solidarity
A post on X by Khamenei this month highlighting income inequality between women and men in the West stoked criticism by users who pointed to the Islamic theocracy's record on women's rights.
The nearly 50-year-old system over which Khamenei presides views the veil as an emblem of Islamic identity and chastity.
Some Iranian men voiced support for the current holiday amid the criticism.
Mehrshad Ahmadian, CEO of a steel company, wrote: “Go sit with your father after you’re done congratulating Mother’s Day, ask him why your mother has no right to divorce? Why doesn’t she have custody of the child she gave birth to? Why does she need permission to obtain a passport?”
Supporters of the government’s agenda defend the official celebrations and the religious framing.
“Whenever we speak of women in the Islamic view, we speak of dignity, not a show," a user on X asserted.
"Islam defines women by the Fatimah model, not by the standards of capitalist markets. Today’s Iranian woman is an example of this great truth.”
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.