Hamed Talebian; Sara Talebian
Abstract
"My Stealthy Freedom" is the name of a Facebook page that demands to protest against compulsory Hijab and demonstrate willing of clothing freedom for women in Iran. The foundation and activity of the page had been described as a "social movement". Some western media claimed that this would be a successful ...
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"My Stealthy Freedom" is the name of a Facebook page that demands to protest against compulsory Hijab and demonstrate willing of clothing freedom for women in Iran. The foundation and activity of the page had been described as a "social movement". Some western media claimed that this would be a successful social movement for Iranian women and some others asserted that this page would be a new platform in which Iranian women represent a new image of their identity. In this paper, analyzing qualitatively a purposive sample of photos with their captions, we are questioning these claims again. Our findings indicate that despite some excitements about a new social movement for Iranian women in western media and western human rights association, "My Stealthy Freedom" cannot be considered as a new applicable social movement against Iran's government and the law of compulsory hijab in Iran. Finally, we conclude that this Facebook page is not only incapable of organizing a real social movement against hijab, but also can be a well-suited example for the concept of slacktivism.
