I was just getting ready to go to bed when I saw this video and knew I had to share it with you.
One of the greatest joys for me over the past few days has been seeing Iranian women show their bravery and defiance in various ways, now that the regime that treated them like garbage for decades is falling apart.
The Iranian national women’s soccer team is currently in Australia, where they’re playing in the Asian Cup at Cbus Super Stadium. On Monday night, they had a match against South Korea, and before it began, the young women lined up for their country’s national anthem, which was adopted in 1990.
What’s notable is that these girls refused to sing along. Some of them seemed nervous. Some smiled. Some seemed to fight back tears. When their coach, Marziyeh Jafari, saw them, her smile said everything. Apparently, groups of people in the crowd were cheering them on and flying the pre-Islamic Revolutionary flag featuring the golden lion and sun, too.
Here’s the video:
A defying silence
The Iranian women’s football national team REFUSED to sing the anthem of the Islamic regime.
Side note: By the time their next game comes up, they probably don’t even have to wear those hijabs anymore. pic.twitter.com/YrqJaYpnln
— Throwback Iran (@Tarikh_Eran) March 2, 2026
Unfortunately, they lost the match, but they’re obviously winning in life. This is what real feminism looks like. Refusing to sing the anthem was seen as an anti-regime move in the past, and these athletes would have faced repercussions upon returning home, ranging from threats to their families to being removed from the team to even arrests or detentions.
In the meantime, the brave feminist women in our country are doing… this:
🚨 JUST IN: Liberal women are holding up PORTRAITS of fallen Ayatollah Ali Khamenei walking past Trump Tower in NYC
Are you serious? Is THIS the liberals’ 2026 campaign platform? Khamenei?
Someone is paying for all of these signs. It’s NOT organic.pic.twitter.com/WthONr6hZw
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 3, 2026
That’s so embarrassing. I actually just saw this post on X, and I think this woman says it best:
Iranian here!
I want to thank American leftists for educating me these past few days & correcting my understanding of Iran & radical Islam.
I almost trusted my own experience, my parents’ trauma, and what my family in Iran endures daily instead of your wisdom. What would I have done without your tweets & tiktok?
Iranian here!
I want to thank American leftists for educating me these past few days & correcting my understanding of Iran & radical Islam
I almost trusted my own experience, my parents’ trauma, and what my family in Iran endures daily instead of your wisdom. What would I…
— bita // بیتا (@_b33ts) March 2, 2026
I don’t have much more to add, but I think I’ll share a few quotes from this essay written by Marzieh Hamidi, a Persian women’s rights activist, author, and Taekwondo athlete, who was born in Iran.
From the first day of school, we were taught not who we were, but what we were not allowed to be. Our hair, our voices, our laughter, our bodies – everything was regulated, monitored, corrected. The Islamic Republic did not merely govern; it policed identity. It tried to erase us before we could even understand ourselves.
We learned early that being a girl meant being watched, disciplined, and blamed. We learned to shrink, to lower our eyes, to speak carefully, to move through the world as if apologizing for existing. The message was constant and clear: to be a woman was to be a problem.
Here’s more:
This regime’s violence was never confined to Iran’s borders. It aligned itself openly with extremists, handed embassies to the Taliban, and called them ‘friends,’ while Afghan women were erased overnight.
It exported repression, instability, and fear – and still demanded legitimacy on the world stage. The same regime that brutalized its own women positioned itself as a regional power, and too many in the West were willing to look away.
This moment – however uncertain, however fragile – demands honesty.
The Islamic Republic is not a misunderstood government. It is a system of gender apartheid, enforced through fear and sustained by the world’s willingness to normalize it.
She concluded:
This moment belongs first to Iranians, especially the women and girls who risked prison, exile, and death for the simple words ‘Woman, Life, Freedom,’ and to those who did not live to see it.
You can read Hamidi’s entire essay here or follow on her Instagram here.
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