Merat Behnam parks her motorbike outside her cafe in downtown Tehran on Nov. 1.Vahid Salemi/The Associated Press
When Merat Behnam first gathered enough courage to ride her yellow scooter through the gridlocked streets of Iran’s capital to the coffee shop she runs, traffic wasn’t her main worry.
She instead girded herself for disapproving looks, verbal abuse and even being stopped by police for being a woman on a motorbike in Tehran, something long frowned upon by hard-liners and conservative clerics in Iran.
But Ms. Behnam, 38, found herself broadly accepted on the road – and part of a wider reconsideration by women about societal expectations in the country.
It’s not all encompassing, particularly as hard-line politicians call for laws on the hijab or head scarf to be enforced and Iran cracks down on intellectuals in the wake of a 12-day war with Israel in June – but it does represent a change.
“It was a big deal for me,” Ms. Behnam told the Associated Press after riding up to her café on a recent day. “I didn’t really know how to go about it. In the beginning, I was quite stressed, but gradually the way people treated me and their reactions encouraged me a lot.”
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Two things in the past prevented women from driving motorbikes or scooters. First of all, police regulations in Iran’s Farsi language specifically refer to only “mardan,” or “men,” being able to obtain motorcycle licences. It’s very gender-specific wording in Farsi, a broadly gender-neutral language grammatically.
“This issue is not a violation but a crime, and my colleagues will deal with these individuals, since none of these women currently have a driver’s licence and we cannot act against the law,” General Abulfazl Mousavipoor, Tehran’s traffic police chief, said in a report carried by the semi-official ISNA news agency in September.
Then there’s the cultural aspect. While women can now hold jobs, political office and a car licence, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has imposed a strictly conservative, Shiite Islam understanding of conduct by women. That includes the country’s mandatory hijab law, which sparked mass demonstrations in 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini, who had allegedly been detained over not wearing a head scarf to the liking of authorities.
In the beliefs of some conservative clerics and hard-liners, a woman riding a scooter or a motorbike is “tabarruj,” or an excessive flaunting of her beauty prohibited by Islam.
“Keeping proper covering for women while riding a motorcycle is very important,” hard-line lawmaker Mohammad Seraj told the semi-official ILNA news agency in September. “A woman sitting on a motorcycle cannot maintain the modest attire expected of her, since both of her hands are occupied with steering the vehicle and she is exposed to the wind.”
When 38-year-old Merat Behnam gathered enough courage to drive her yellow motorbike through the gridlocked streets of Iran’s capital to the coffee shop she runs, traffic wasn’t her main worry.
The Associated Press
For many, the motorbike ban runs directly into the reality of Tehran’s streets, crowded with an estimated over four million cars and another four million motorcycles on the road daily. For decades, women in the all-encompassing black chador could be seen riding side-saddle on motorbikes driven by men.
But after women began forgoing the hijab, more women began taking the risk and riding their motorbikes through Tehran as well, avoiding the congestion charges levied on cars that run over 20 million rial a month. While still a small percentage of the overall traffic, their presence on the road has become more common.
“There is not any political manifesto or social agenda here,” Ms. Behnam said. “It’s just that since my workplace is downtown and I had to commute every day from [the western neighbourhood of] Sattarkhan, the traffic there – and the parking issue, plus the traffic zone restrictions – were driving me crazy.”
But for others, it is a political issue. There’s been speculation that the administration of reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, who campaigned on openness to the West before the war, may try to change the regulations to allow women to be licensed. Reformists – those who seek to change Iran’s theocracy from within – also have called for the change.
“It’s time to move past the invisible walls of cultural judgment and bureaucratic rules,” the Shargh newspaper said in September. “For women, riding a motorcycle is not just a way to commute but a symbol of choice, independence and equal presence in society.”
Ms. Benham says riding her motorbike also gave her the first positive interaction she’s had with the police.
“For the first time, a police officer – well, actually, a traffic officer – made me feel encouraged and safer. I could feel that there was some kind of support,” she said. “Even the times they gave me warnings, they were technical ones – like where to park, not to do certain things or to always wear a helmet.”
