The Same Garment, Forced Off and Then Forced on, within One Lifetime

The Iranian chador is the clearest case in this atlas of a single religious garment being coerced in both directions by successive states, and it complicates any account that treats compulsion as running only one way.

A Persian form

The chador is a full-length semicircular cloak worn over the clothes and held closed at the front, usually with the hands, leaving the face uncovered. It is the characteristic Iranian form, and its use predates Islam in Persian dress, so it is not simply an Islamic requirement transplanted.

Removed, then imposed

Reza Shah banned it in 1936 and police removed it from women in the street, a measure deeply resented by religious families and relaxed after 1941. After 1979 the Islamic Republic made covering compulsory. The same garment has therefore been forcibly stripped from women and forcibly imposed on them by two governments within living memory. Stating that plainly matters, because the chador is often discussed as though compulsion could only ever mean compulsion to wear it, when the historical record shows the state coercing in both directions depending on the ideology in power.