Nasrabadi explained that today’s protests are the latest in a long-running freedom struggle in Iran, beginning with the 1979 coup d’etat that overthrew the shah and established an Islamic republic. Amid that revolution, thousands of women took to the streets of Tehran to protest state control over women’s bodies. At the time, Nasrabadi said, many dismissed the women’s demands as a “side issue” that could wait until after the establishment of a republic. The topic is only now rising to prominence again in conjunction with government crackdowns that have given Iranians less latitude to speak and assemble freely.

“[These women] rightly understood that the imposition of this kind of state control over women’s bodies was part of a broader anti-democratic turn that would see the curtailment of many rights,” Nasrabadi said. Forty years later, “the era of reform is over… now we have the unprecedented reality that there’s a massive widespread uprising [where] women’s bodily autonomy is a lightning rod for all these desires for freedom.”

In high school classrooms, Poots said, Iranian girls are removing their mandatory hijabs and posting lyrics to resistance songs on chalkboards. In city streets, Al-Ali mentioned, women are burning their hijabs in celebratory bonfires. And throughout the country, Al-Ali added, Amini’s death is striking up important conversations about the connections between the Iranian government’s policing of women’s bodies and its use of excessive force against Kurds and other ethnic minorities who flout laws or challenge the status quo.

The international attention Iran’s protests have gained, the three scholars agreed, could lead to a massive, cross-border feminist movement that could advance conversations about bodily autonomy worldwide. While in previous years Americans may have struggled to relate to the plight of Iranian women, Nasrabadi said, many now feel their freedom is in jeopardy following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had established the right to seek an abortion.

“Instead of a discourse of the ‘liberated Western woman’ who is supposed to save or help the ‘oppressed Muslim woman’… Iranian women are leading the way,” she said. “This is potentially a moment where we can come together as peers in distinct but linked struggles and break down hierarchies that have gotten in the way of building international feminist solidarity for some time.”

Both Nasrabadi and Al-Ali encouraged viewers to sign statements of solidarity with protesting Iranians, to raise awareness of unfolding events in Tehran and beyond with friends and on social media, and to celebrate the bravery of Iranian women and men who are putting their lives on the line to make their voices heard.

“I’m inspired and hopeful,” Al-Ali said. “This is a time where we all need to step up and be in solidarity and [make] connections [and] move beyond our comfort zones.”

Editor's note: Al-Ali shared more thoughts on the protests in Iran on a special bonus episode of the Watson Institute podcast Trending Globally, released on Friday, Oct. 7.