Lately there has been circulation of some strange messages on social media from Iranian Husbands. They are sharing posts and pictures of themselves with banners that support female equality. Thousands of these messages are trending on Facebook in support of their wives.
The captain of Iran's indoor football team, Mrs. Niloufar Ardalan had to represent her country in Malaysia for a football match. However, her husband wanted her to stay for their son's first day at school. So her husband declared she was not allowed to go, so she couldn't go.
Yes, in most of the houses of Iran this is happening between couples due to a signed marriage contract. This standard contract for marriage in Iran allows the husband to decide where his family will live, whether her wife will work or not, whether her wife will travel out of country and also if she will be allowed to ask for divorce or not. This is the reason that Niloufar was unable to travel abroad without her husband's consent.
However, if husbands want to choose otherwise, they can do so. They can always give up particular provisions to their wives and promote their freedom. Now inspired by the story of Niloufar, many Iranian men have surrendered their provisions in the favor of their wives and are sharing their pictures to support female equality. This social media campaigning by husbands in Iran is actually creating a wave of change in favor of wives.
This campaign is mainly running through a Facebook page "My Stealthy Freedom", whose owner is an Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad. This page was created with a purpose to promote awareness about women's rights in Iran.
Alinejad is now residing in US and running this campaign by daily receiving and sharing various pictures from Iranian people who support gender equality. Earlier, there had been sharing of pictures depicting Iranian's demands to free women from headscarves. Thereafter, this wave of rebel infected masses and daily there had been shares and likes of 100000s in favor of women freedom in Iran. Alinejad has titled this campaign "Its Men's Turn" to seek support from male population.
According to Alinejad many Iranian women don't know their basic rights. They should be made aware about their marriage contract, because women don't know that they can ask for amendments in their marriage contract even after it has been signed. According to a survey conducted by iranianpersonals, 75% of Iranian men are in favor of women equality. Since lots of Iranian men are open-minded, they support women's rights. This is the reason that despite country's conservative laws, Alinejad's campaign is progressing and husbands are standing up for their wives.
Though Alinejad's campaign initially asked Iranian men to make a commitment to allow your wives for traveling, but Iranian men displayed unimaginable courage and posted messages saying that they have given back all rights to their wives. Husbands wrote that they are returning rights to their life partner and they are not owners but partners to their wives. Also one husband said that he feel ashamed to have such rights over her wife as a human being. Moreover, some brilliant ones shared the picture of their marriage contract showing amendments to promote women's rights.