Why Iranian women are burning their hijabs

villages to the steps of Tehran University in the capital, women are leading men. They are at the front of protests and rally the crowds by burning their mandatory hijabs (headscarves), cutting their hair and dancing in public. Their immediate cause is Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old student, who died on September 16th after morality police beat her, apparently for wearing a loose hijab. But their grievances are fed by four decades of religious strictures that have fallen heaviest on women. After a week of gunfire and killing, their protests are spreading.The social curbs are the latest in a wave of measures designed to shore up the Islamic Republic as a successor is found for the octogenarian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In recent years the Ayatollah has purged his regime of reformers and consolidated all branches of government under trusted zealots such as Ebrahim Raisi, his hardline president.