Kashf-e hijab

[9] In 1936, Reza Shah banned the veil and encouraged Iranians to adopt European dress[10] in an effort to promote nation-building in a country with many tribal, regional, religious, and class-based variations in clothing.

[11] It was the policy of the Shah to increase women's participation in society as a method of the modernization of the country, in accordance with the example of Turkey.

[15] In 1924, the singer Qamar-ol-Moluk Vaziri broke gender segregation and seclusion by performing unveiled in gender-mixed company at the Grand Hotel in Tehran and at the Royal Palace Theater.

[16] Iranian women's rights activists supported unveiling, and the feminist Sediqeh Dowlatabadi is believed to have been the first woman in Iran to have appeared in public without the veil in 1928.

[15] In 1926, the Shah specifically provided police protection for individual women who appeared unveiled but with a scarf or a hat to cover the hair.

[19] In 1928, the queen of Afghanistan, Soraya Tarzi, appeared unveiled in public with the Shah during her official visit in Iran.

Later that year the Shah's wife, Queen Tadj ol-Molouk, attended the Fatima Masumeh Shrine during her pilgrimage in Qom wearing a veil which did not cover her completely, as well as showing her face, for which she was harshly criticized by a cleric.

[12] That day, Reza Shah attended the graduation ceremony of the Tehran Teacher's College with the queen and their two daughters unveiled and dressed in modern clothes, without veils.

[6][7][8] A far larger escalation of violence occurred in the summer of 1935, when Reza Shah ordered all men to wear European-style bowler hats.

This provoked massive non-violent demonstrations in July in the city of Mashhad, which were brutally suppressed by the Imperial Iranian Army, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 100 to 500 people (including women and children).

[12] Many of Iran's leading feminists and women's rights activists organized in the Kanun-e Banuvan to campaign in favor of the Kashf-e hijab, among them Hajar Tarbiat, Vaziri, Dowlatabadi, Farrokhroo Parsa and Parvin E'tesami.

The Shah's decree was commented on by the British consul in Tehran:[21] Next to their daily bread, what affects the people most widely is what touches the code of social habit that, in Islam, is endorsed by religion.

Hence, resistance among the greater part of the people has been passive, and, where existing, has manifested itself in reluctance of the older generation to go abroad in the streets.

[1][6][7][8][23][21][32][excessive citations] One of the enduring legacies of Reza Shah has been turning dress into an integral issue of Iranian politics.

[28] Under the next ruler Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, wearing of the veil or chador was no longer an offence, and women were able to dress as they wished.

[33] However, under his regime, the chador became a significant hindrance to climbing the social ladder, as it was considered a badge of backwardness and an indicator of being a member of the lower class.

Unveiled women came to be seen by some of the opposition as a symbol of Western cultural colonialism; as victims of Westoxication, "a super-consumer" of products of imperialism, a propagator of "corrupt Western culture", undermining the traditionalist conception of "morals of society", and as overly dressed up "bourgeois dolls", who had lost their honor.

Reza Shah's wife Tadj ol-Molouk , and their daughters Shams and Ashraf , 8 January 1936, famously participating in a public ceremony without hijab for the first time.
The women of the Iranian women's movement largely consisted of educated elite women positive to unveiling. This image of the Board of Governors of the women's organization Jam'iyat-e Nesvan-e Vatankhah , Tehran , is dated to 1922–1932; before the Kashf-e hijab reform in 1936.
Unveiled middle-class women vote in the election of 1963. In the period of 1941–1979, veiling was a class marker. The modernization reforms included both unveiling and women's suffrage.
1979 Iranian Women Day's protests against mandatory veiling. Unveiled women protesting against the introduction of mandatory veiling. While many women had worn the veil during the revolution, they had not expected mandatory veiling and did not support it.