Amid the devastating losses experienced throughout the past seven weeks, we have started to feel rumblings of hope, that just maybe we are watching a new chapter unfold for Iran. That the power of the collective – led by a new generation of fearless Iranian women and accompanied by the crucial support of Iranian men – may just propel us closer to freedom.

Over the past month, it has felt like a seismic shift is starting to take place. This is thanks to the unrelenting bravery and fury of Iranian women and their allies, and the willingness of the international community to continue sharing their stories, and to march with them. In Berlin, we witnessed the largest-ever demonstration against the Islamic Republic by Iranians abroad, with a crowd of 80,000, whose collective emotion was broadcast around the world. In New York City, an artist collective staged a protest at the Guggenheim Museum, sending a dozen red banners snaking down from the top floor of the building’s rotunda, created to call attention to the courageous Iranian women risking their lives to stand up against oppression, and to overthrow a totalitarian system.

In Iran, the protests which began in Zhina ‘Mahsa’ Amini’s hometown before spreading like wildfire across the country are still raging on. The most striking displays of resistance that reach us in the West are often the starkest and simplest: women riding the metro defiantly with their hair uncovered, schoolgirls in their classrooms chanting with their hair falling down their backs.

“A seismic shift is starting to take place in Iran thanks to the bravery of Iranian women”