Iranian Women Become Time’s Person of the Year
Iranian Women Become Time’s Person of the Year: Iranian women protesters have become one of seventy nominees for Time magazine’s Person of the Year. Some social media users have urged audiences, especially Farsi speakers, to participate in the special voting for the Person of the Year on the magazine’s website to increase this chance. Some believe that Iranian women’s chances are high, and their only competitor is Zelensky, who is also one of the nominees for the magazine’s cover.
Seven years ago, Time magazine dedicated the cover of one of its issues to a girl from Iran. The image and headline at that time were very controversial and hinted at how Iran would change the world in 2025. Conservative media interpreted it as an Iran that the West favors. When recent protests arose, some recalled that image and headline, noting that Time’s predictions weren’t entirely off.
According to a long-standing tradition, this magazine awards the title of Person of the Year to someone who has garnered the most positive or negative attention in the past year. Until 1988, this title was called Man of the Year, but after that, it was renamed Person of the Year. Images related to Iran or Iranians have appeared on this magazine’s cover several times, but the only time Iran was the subject of Time’s Person of the Year was in 1979, during the 67 Revolution, with the image of Ruhollah Khomeini on the cover.
Unusual Faces of the Year
Interestingly, Time’s Person of the Year has not always been an individual, male or female. In 1982, the personal computer was featured as Machine of the Year on the magazine’s cover. In 1988, Earth was named Planet of the Year to raise awareness about the environment, and in 1993, the symbol of peace inspired by the South African movement and the Irish Republic became the symbol of the year.
A whistle as a symbol of whistleblowers of scandals and the image of U.S. military forces were featured on the magazine’s cover in 2002 and 2003, respectively. At one point, the word ‘you’ on a monitor became the symbol of the creators of the World Wide Web as the magazine’s Person of the Year.
The last time a protest movement captured the magazine’s attention for Person of the Year was in 2011, when a protesting man shouting, with protesters in the background behind him, became the symbol of the Arab Spring, the Tea Party movement, the Occupy movement, and protests in Russia on the cover.
Iran from a Foreign Perspective
The recent protests in Iran, which have now lasted two months, have attracted significant attention worldwide from the start. Support and solidarity from cultural, sports, and artistic figures, celebrities, and even politicians for these protests have been unprecedented. The reception of the song ‘Baraye’ by Shervin Hajipour by singers from other countries, its translation into other languages, and performances in concerts have even placed him among the top nominees for a Grammy award. Global media have been following events in Iran from the outset, and in the first weeks of the protests, Iranian stories frequently appeared in the reports and front pages of reputable international newspapers and magazines.
Agence France-Presse reported on the creative tactics of the Iranian people, noting that perhaps the most important tactic is that protesters do not gather in large, open spaces but rather spontaneously and quickly gather in smaller, more confined places to protest and disperse, making it difficult to track them.
The agency also covered protests by teenage schoolgirls, the reddening of city fountains, and the story of Ekbatan Town. Some even use the term ‘revolution’ for these recent protests. The Washington Post reported on how universities became centers of protest, writing that students, in their fight to dismantle gender segregation and eat together, shouted ‘Woman, Life, Freedom,’ risking expulsion, beatings, and arrest.
Perhaps most importantly, a group of Palestinian intellectuals expressed support for the Iranian people, despite the fact that the banner of support for the Palestinian people has always been held by the power structure and conservatives. However, a group of Palestinian artists and intellectuals, in a message supporting the Iranian people’s protests, questioned the Islamic Republic’s defense of freedom and the rightful aspirations of the Palestinian people, stating, ‘We cannot accept that our freedom comes at the cost of denying others their freedom.’ This statement received no coverage in conservative and value-based media, as conservatives tried to ignore it.
When events in Iran attract such global attention and even temporarily become the focal point of social media users, spilling over into the real world, it is not surprising that one of the main candidates for Time magazine’s Person of the Year might be Iranian women protesters. We must wait and see which seen or unseen image from the street protests, emphasizing women, becomes the Person of the Year 2022.
In line with this article, the following topics have been published on Iran Gate:
- Public Protests and the Increased Awareness of Iranians in the West
- The Result of a Futuristic Report on Hijab: There is No Choice but Tolerance
- The Equations Have Changed, and the Government Must Wake Up