Iranian women are also defying the taboo of riding motorcycles (and without a license)

On August 10, 2024, the Iranian Motorcycle and Automobile Federation announced that the country would participate for the first time in the Asian Women’s Motocross Cup, held that month in Thailand. Iran’s representative was Arezou Abedini, a professional motocross rider who competes in championships and is often photographed performing incredible jumps on two wheels. However, she doesn’t have a motorcycle license. Neither does any other Iranian woman. Women in Iran can drive cars, buses, and even pilot commercial airplanes, but they cannot legally operate two-wheeled motor vehicles because the law regulating such licenses only mentions “men.” This is yet another misogynistic rule that a growing number of Iranian women are challenging. The sight of girls on scooters, mothers taking their children to school on motorcycles, or even, in rarer cases, women riding high-powered motorcycles is no longer unusual in Iranian cities.

As has been happening lately with the imposition of the mandatory veil law, which thousands of Iranians have dispensed with as a gesture of civil disobedience, the authorities and the police are showing some tolerance toward what is already a fait accompli that Iranian women have adopted, showing great courage.

The phenomenon is becoming so commonplace that the demand for training to ride these vehicles is also increasing. Unable to enroll in a driving school, these women are signing up for courses at closed circuits and motorcycle clubs. Sometimes, these courses are taught by other women, either professionals or simply experienced riders. Some of them have been riding for years at training centers or at night, taking advantage of the deserted streets. The renowned photographer Maryam Saeedpoor has also dedicated a beautiful series of images to her fellow female motorcyclists.

A video documentary published on November 12 by the Iranian exile website IranWire attests to the phenomenon, but also to the fact that the authorities’ tolerance is relative. For a woman, riding a motorcycle in Iran is against the law, since they do so without a license. Without this document, the police can fine them and confiscate their vehicle, while the courts can order them to pay civil damages in the event of an accident, even though — in another paradox imposed by sexism in Iran — women can buy, own, and insure motorcycles that they then lack the license to drive, giving insurance companies a pretext for avoiding paying compensation in the event of an accident.

In that documentary, a camera follows two young female motorcyclists who agree that the police “leave them alone” if they “follow the traffic laws.” However, both speak anonymously and with their faces blurred.

The fear persists, but to a lesser degree: “At first, when I was riding the motorbike, I was worried that the traffic police would stop me in the street, but now that worry has lessened,” says one of them before concluding: “The Iranian police have gotten used to female motorcyclists.”

“Cosmetic” tolerance

Several regional media outlets have highlighted that this police tolerance is a product of the social changes imposed by Iranian women. However, the Franco-Iranian sociologist and political scientist Mahnaz Shirali — author of Fenêtre sur l’Iran, le cri d’un peuplé bâillonné (Window on Iran, the Cry of a Silenced People, Les Pérégrines Publishing) — believes that the way officers are turning a blind eye to female motorcyclists is due to a desire for a “friendly” image in the West. It’s a “cosmetic” measure, she says by phone from Paris.

The Iranian regime emerged from the 12 days of Israeli and U.S. bombing last June weakened, but not shaken. The attacks damaged Iran’s nuclear facilities, killed prominent scientists and the heads of the country’s two armed forces — the regular army and the more powerful Revolutionary Guard. Above all, they caused the deaths of over 1,000 civilians, according to NGO estimates.

The Islamic Republic was already experiencing a period of fragility. Militarily — due to the 2024 Israeli attacks and the virtual dismantling of its network of regional alliances during the two-year Israeli occupation of Gaza — and economically, due to drought, the impoverishment of its population, the corruption of its elites, and international sanctions against its nuclear program. Added to these factors is a repression that has widened the chasm between an ultraconservative religious regime and a segment of an increasingly secularized population.

In this context, the government of pragmatic President Masoud Pezeshkian is showing signs of flexibility on minor issues. The aim could be to prevent the anger of many Iranian women — weary of discrimination — from escalating. It also seeks to project an image of moderation without having to undertake significant changes or pay a high political price. Tolerating Iranian women, who have been driving cars for decades, also riding motorcycles does nothing to alter the foundations of the Iranian political system.

In August, Kazem Delkhosh, deputy head of the Parliamentary Affairs Office of the country’s presidency, announced that a bill to extend motorcycle driving permits to women had been sent to parliament.

Iranians, meanwhile, are suspicious. Public opinion remains divided on whether this sudden policy shift is genuine or a political maneuver, according to IranWire, aimed at regaining the popular support that has plummeted, especially since the crackdown that followed the 2022 protests. The trigger for those protests was the police killing on September 16 of that year of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman arrested three days earlier for allegedly wearing the veil improperly.

More optimistic, other Iranians, according to the Iranian exile portal, believe that “the authorities have had no choice but to give in to the persistent demands of the women.”

That same statement can also be applied to the far more crucial issue of the veil. The hijab is not just a piece of cloth, but the outward symbol of the regime’s ultraconservative Islamic ideology and the oppression women suffer in a country where fathers and husbands can forbid them from studying, traveling, or working.

Neither the threat of imprisonment, nor fines, nor cameras, nor car confiscation, nor the imposition of terrifying punishments — such as washing corpses — have deterred many Iranian women from continuing to forgo the veil, which many removed after Amini’s death. Now there are thousands. However, the laws in Iran have not changed. The veil remains mandatory, and progress on this issue is reversible.

To be approved, the bill to legalize women riding motorcycles would have to overcome opposition from the most conservative sector of the Islamic Republic. “Some [women] drive motorcycles without a hijab, with an inadequate one, or with insufficient coverage… this behavior goes against Islamic law,” said Abdolhossein Khosropanah, a member of the Supreme Council for the Cultural Revolution, the state body that oversees Islamic cultural and educational policy. His statements suggest that, as Iranian feminists assert, the imposition of the hijab goes beyond a religious symbol to become a pervasive tool of control.

Mahnaz Shirali considers it “ridiculous” that the West’s attention is focused on “minor progress” such as women being able to ride motorcycles, when “repression in Iran has intensified,” she says.

“We tolerate women not wearing veils, them driving motorcycles, and people dancing at street concerts,” she criticizes, alluding to a viral video of a rock band playing in Tehran while many young people danced. “Meanwhile,” the sociologist laments, “the regime continues to imprison, torture, and subject hundreds of Iranians to enforced disappearance.” On October 31, the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran denounced an “increase in repression and an extraordinary surge in executions” in Iran since the Israeli attacks in June.

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