The Iranian motorbike champion fighting gender discrimination

A ver­sion of this sto­ry appears in Issue 79 of Huck. Get your copy now, or sub­scribe to make sure you nev­er miss anoth­er issue.

Once night has fall­en and the streets have emp­tied of vehi­cles, Tehran’s motor­ways become a play­ground for many young Ira­ni­ans. Escap­ing the day-to-day pres­sures of life, car dri­vers and motor­bike rid­ers rip around the high­ways at high speed, under the cov­er of dark­ness. Clup Nin­ja, a Tehran motor­bike crew with over 400 mem­bers, descends on the city, en masse, three nights a week, hold­ing drag races on the emp­ty motor­ways. Among this swarm of super­bikes and smok­ing rub­ber, Behnaz Shafiei, on her metal­lic blue Yama­ha YZF-R25, is the only woman. 

“When I ride my motor­bike, this hap­pi­ness and ener­gy inten­si­fies,” Behnaz explains. ​“With the adren­a­line rush, all my prob­lems van­ish and I think of noth­ing but to ride. It gives me a sense of fly­ing and free­dom, a sense of pow­er, a sense of hav­ing the whole world under my feet. I extreme­ly enjoy it.” Glob­al­ly, motor­sport remains a boy’s club and it’s still pret­ty rare to see female rid­ers. But in Iran, it’s almost unheard of, as women are pro­hib­it­ed from obtain­ing motor­bike licences. Behnaz is break­ing the law and risks arrest every time she rides on the streets. 

In 2015, Behnaz became the first female pro­fes­sion­al motor­bike rac­er in the Islam­ic Repub­lic and the Mid­dle East. Ever since she start­ed rid­ing motor­bikes, in secret, 19 years ago, Behnaz has been break­ing down bar­ri­ers for women. After years as one of the few out­spo­ken voic­es call­ing for greater female par­tic­i­pa­tion in Iran­ian sport, she has con­front­ed resis­tance from many quar­ters, from every­day misog­y­ny to state pow­er. With few allies to count on, Behnaz has shared her sto­ry to inspire oth­er women to ride and used her grow­ing pub­lic plat­form to call for an end to gen­der dis­crim­i­na­tion. Yet, despite being crowned Iran­ian female cham­pi­on, com­pet­ing inter­na­tion­al­ly and inter­views with nation­al news­pa­pers and on state TV, Behnaz and all Iran­ian women are still denied licences to ride legal­ly on the streets — an injus­tice Behnaz remains deter­mined to overturn. 

Behnaz was born and raised in Karaj, near Tehran, in the shad­ows of the Atash­gah moun­tains. Her moth­er says her pas­sion for motor­bikes began ear­ly. When she was just two or three, Behnaz would scream and shout when­ev­er she saw a motor­bike go by. Even­tu­al­ly, her par­ents suc­cumbed to Behnaz’s demands and took her for a ride on the back of one — seal­ing a pas­sion for life. 

In Iran, women can dri­ve cars but are pro­hib­it­ed from rid­ing motor­bikes, so Behnaz spent her child­hood with­out think­ing that she, her­self, could ride. ​“When I was 15, I was on hol­i­day with my fam­i­ly in Zan­jan province and I met a lady in a vil­lage who was rid­ing a motor­bike,” Behnaz remem­bers. ​“When I saw her, it sparked the idea of me rid­ing one. I was so inter­est­ed and decid­ed that one day, I want­ed to be a motor­cy­cle champion.” 

But the scale of obsta­cles that stood in Behnaz’s way were immense. With both rid­ing motor­bikes on the streets and rac­ing pro­hib­it­ed for women, she was forced to prac­tise at night and fly under the radar. She bor­rowed her brother’s bike and with no idea about safe­ty equip­ment, she rode with only a track­suit and motor­cy­cle hel­met. ​“I was rid­ing with all my heart,” she remem­bers. ​“But I was scared because it was ille­gal for women to engage in this activ­i­ty.”

Once Behnaz had built up more con­fi­dence and saved mon­ey from her job in accoun­tan­cy, she bought her own bike, a TVS Apache 180cc, and full pro­tec­tive gear. Cov­ered head-to-toe, nobody could tell that she was a woman, so she began to ride more and more intense­ly in the moun­tains near her home.

Female par­tic­i­pa­tion in sport has been grow­ing over the years but remains heav­i­ly restrict­ed by the Iran­ian state on reli­gious grounds, with strict enforce­ment of female cloth­ing reg­u­la­tions ​“for mod­esty” and sep­a­ra­tion of the sex­es. Women are only allowed to com­pete in spe­cif­ic sports, from mar­tial arts to car ral­lies, usu­al­ly with­out men in the audi­ence, and reli­gious hard­lin­ers push back strong­ly against any attempts to increase equal­i­ty in sport. But back then, Behnaz didn’t realise women were banned from com­pet­ing on motor­bikes until she approached the Iran­ian sports min­istry. ​“Why can’t women race?” Behnaz remem­bers ask­ing. ​“There is no good rea­son why not,” she told her­self — and the ministry.

Iran­ian women have been arrest­ed after rid­ing motor­bikes and accused of com­mit­ting an ​“obscene act” by police. Behnaz soon under­stood the rad­i­cal­ism of what she was doing but grew increas­ing­ly deter­mined to smash down the bar­ri­ers that stood in the way of her and oth­er women. ​“I realised I would have to lib­er­ate the sport so that I could par­tic­i­pate in com­pe­ti­tions and achieve my child­hood dream,” Behnaz explains. ​“I don’t under­stand why the sim­plest form of cit­i­zen­ship rights is banned for women in Iran. It was not accept­able for me then and is not accept­able to me today.”

Behnaz became the first Iran­ian woman motor­cy­clist to win per­mis­sion to prac­tise on off-road tracks, then to com­pete in men’s races. She remem­bers that the sports min­istry was insis­tent that she remain cov­ered and wore the hijab at all times.… before real­is­ing that motor­bike pro­tec­tive gear cov­ers the entire body. While Shafiei and a small but grow­ing num­ber of oth­er female motocross rid­ers could join clubs, they were barred from the crown­ing heights: Tehran’s impres­sive, male-only Aza­di sport com­plex. Instead, they had to prac­tise on rough-and-ready tracks, such as Behnaz’s local track in Karaj, which had no prop­er med­ical facilities.

Behnaz helped organ­ise a grow­ing group of female motocross rid­ers to prove there was hunger to race and shat­ter the sports ministry’s argu­ment that motor­bike rac­ing was not a sport for women. They ral­lied their sup­port­ers, wrote let­ters and paid repeat­ed vis­its to the min­istry. After three years of sus­tained pres­sure, the min­istry final­ly gave in and allowed the race to go ahead.

“I like to keep on prov­ing that women can do what has been restrict­ed for them and more; we can do what soci­ety so often likes to label ​‘unsuit­able for women’,’” Behnaz says. ​“I’ve spent my life bat­tling men who refused to see women as empow­ered and strong, men who were com­plete misog­y­nists. How­ev­er, I proved myself by prac­tis­ing and insist­ing on what I aspired to achieve. Over time, this changed their fixed mind­sets about women like me.”

Aged 27, Behnaz staged the first all-female motocross race in Iran in 2015. 30 women applied to join and 15 were select­ed to take their posi­tions on the start line. All organ­is­ers and spec­ta­tors were women, too — with men barred from the track through­out, upon orders of the sports min­istry. When heavy snow­fall cov­ered the track, local men used it as an excuse to call for can­cel­la­tion of the race. ​“Every sin­gle woman involved was deter­mined this race would go ahead,” Behnaz remem­bers. In sub-zero tem­per­a­tures, they cleared the track with shov­els, mopped up the pud­dles and put out tires around the track by hand.

Behnaz stormed to vic­to­ry, claim­ing the che­quered flag and becom­ing the first Iran­ian female cham­pi­on. But vic­to­ry was not hers alone: it led to win­ning access to the Aza­di sta­di­um for women and remov­ing a host of oth­er restric­tions on women in motor­bike rac­ing. Becom­ing Iran­ian cham­pi­on secured Behnaz inter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion and she was pro­filed by The Guardian, BBC and oth­er inter­na­tion­al out­lets. She has since con­nect­ed with female motor­bik­ing com­mu­ni­ties around the world on social media and even had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to car­ry the 2018 Win­ter Olympics torch in Seoul, South Korea. Behnaz now also races super­bikes as well as motocross and com­petes inter­na­tion­al­ly in the USA, Ger­many, Dubai and Chi­na — although with­out offi­cial per­mis­sion from the Iran­ian Fed­er­a­tion, she par­tic­i­pates as a free agent.

“The fact that I could change the law lim­it­ing women in my coun­try in the his­to­ry of motor­bike rid­ing is what I’m still most proud of,“ Behnaz reflects. ​“I did what nobody thought of and what nobody actu­al­ly dared to do. I am beyond hap­py I got to be an inspi­ra­tion and a sym­bol for Iran­ian women, show­ing them the path to freedom.”

On Sep­tem­ber 16, 2022 news broke that 22-year-old Mah­sa Ami­ni had died in cus­tody fol­low­ing her arrest by the Gasht-e-Ershad, Iran’s moral­i­ty police, for ​“improp­er­ly wear­ing her hijab.” Protests broke out in Tehran and soon erupt­ed across the coun­try in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Jina, Mahsa’s Kur­dish name, which is for­bid­den for being ​“for­eign and un-Islam­ic.” Led by women, protests have been gal­vanised by the slo­gan ​‘Zan

Zen­de­gi, Aza­di’ in Far­si or ​‘Woman, Life, Free­dom’. Despite bru­tal crack­downs by the state, with women and girls beat­en, incar­cer­at­ed and even killed, the move­ment continues.

West­ern media often presents Mus­lim women as silent and pas­sive but there is a rich his­to­ry of coura­geous acts of indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive protest by women through­out Iran­ian his­to­ry — which Behnaz’s per­son­al strug­gle fits into. The sym­bol­ic hair-cut­ting that became icon­ic around the world dur­ing recent protests dates back to 1010 AD and the poem ​‘Shah­nameh’, in which Farangis cuts off her hair to protest and mourn the killing of her hus­band. After World War II, Iran­ian women won ever-greater rights and made sig­nif­i­cant advances towards equal­i­ty, even after the US and UK-backed coup against the demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed Prime Min­is­ter, Moham­mad Mosad­degh in 1953 and impo­si­tion of the auto­crat­ic Shah. In 1979, the Islam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion over­threw the Shah. A month after Aya­tol­lah Khomeini’s rise to pow­er, the Inter­na­tion­al Women’s Day cel­e­bra­tions on March 8, 1979 grew into six days of enor­mous protests against the enforce­ment of new mod­esty rules for women. Yet, despite ongo­ing resis­tance, the wear­ing of the Hijab was made com­pul­so­ry in 1983.

This gen­er­a­tion of high­ly edu­cat­ed Iran­ian women and girls are refus­ing to accept con­straints on their lives and the cur­tail­ment of their rights. This has become the longest-run­ning major upris­ing against the Islam­ic Repub­lic and many men have also joined protests against rules that lim­it women’s free­dom of move­ment, rights to bod­i­ly auton­o­my and access to the labour mar­ket. Behnaz has spent years as one of the few voic­es call­ing pub­licly for more rights and oppor­tu­ni­ties for women in Iran. So, how does she feel now, see­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of young Iran­ian women tak­ing to the streets to demand equal­i­ty? ​“Let me not answer this ques­tion, due to the trou­ble it may cause con­cern­ing the polit­i­cal issues in my coun­try,” Behnaz says.

Behnaz is forced to tread a dif­fi­cult line, know­ing that reper­cus­sions for being too out­spo­ken could result in her blos­som­ing career being snatched away — or worse. She choos­es to answer in gen­er­al terms. ​“I have nev­er under­stood restric­tions for spe­cif­ic gen­ders,” Behnaz explains. ​“There have been so many times when men out­did women in so-called ​‘fem­i­nine’ activ­i­ties and women out­did men in ​‘mas­cu­line’ tasks. The world will be a bet­ter place when we abol­ish this mind­set, when we rid the world of gen­der dis­crim­i­na­tion and all humans have equal rights. I hope one day all women in Iran and across the Mid­dle East can reach their goals, meet their needs, decide freely for them­selves and live hap­pi­ly and care­free.

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