Protests in Russia fizzled out because only men had something to lose; in Iran, women have a "personal" reason to remain on the streets

 

Public protests in Russia against Vladimir Putin’s “partial mobilization” have fizzled out, and it isn’t hard to see why. Male protesters were not just arrested—they were given their “draft notices.” Save for images of women in Asiatic far-eastern Russia detained for protesting why their loved ones were being used as cannon fodder for a war none of them understood, Russian women made a show and then disappeared. It wasn’t “personal” for them that men they may or may not know were going to be cannon fodder with little training, poorly armed and supplied—little more than “bodies” to plug up the broken battle lines as long as they stayed upright.

We can surmise that if Russian women took it “personally” that Russian men were going out to be killed for a cause they didn't believe in to prop-up a demented dictator, and the fact they were being sent to fight in an unjustified war where Ukrainian women just like themselves were being killed in attacks on civilian targets, then they might still be taking to the streets. But they are not, because deep down they are Russian nationalists,  the war is an "abstract" idea to them anyways, and they do what they are told they “must” do, which is to just go home and be quiet.

That is not what is happening in Iran today, surprisingly or not. Iranian women are still on the march six weeks after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who was detained by the “morality police” after allegedly incorrectly wearing her hijab (head scarf), and apparently beaten to death while in custody:

 

This was followed by the death of another teenage girl, Nika Shahkarami, who disappeared and then was found dead after she was involved in a hajib-burning demonstration. Like Amini, she was attractive-looking and thus apparently had too much "vanity" in they eyes of sharia law and the authorities.

If the regime had acted to insure that those guilty were brought to justice (they knew who the guilty were), anger over these incidents might have been tamped down, and the far-right religious extremists in charge of the country would have had been afforded some credibility. But the Iranian regime (like the Chinese and Putin regimes) isn't interested in justice, only control. 

Of course the threat the power of freedom of expression and free will in general is to religious fanaticism is also a threat to the control of the religious leaders of the country. Even seeming “minor” infractions to the "rules" are to them is a sign of “rebellion” that if allowed to continue can be imitated and eventually cannot be controlled and their power over the people nothing more than empty rhetoric.

Instead, the regime has remained seemingly disinterested in justice and this only demonstrated that if the authorities behaved as if a human being was worth sacrificing for a crime seemingly (to us) of a petty nature, then something had to be changed. Women in Iran took this disinterest in justice for themselves “personally,” and thus we see that unlike Russian women they are motivated to take to the streets and could remain there until the regime takes their demands for justice seriously. 

Up to this point the regime clearly has not; instead it accuses the protesters of being “terrorists” and supported by the infidels in the U.S. and the West in order to undermine their legitimacy. Human rights groups are reporting that more than 200 people, including children, have been killed by security forces since the protests started. The map provided by Radio Free Europe shows the hotspots of these protests where these killings have taken place:

 

That the majority of them are close to Kurdistan—where Amini lived—isn’t surprising since Iranian protesters have appropriated slogans from Kurdish freedom movements. In her hometown, thousands gathered to be at her burial site…

 

…even though her family was warned to call off any funeral service that would attract such a crowd. A live news stream by News18 recorded this for a few minutes before “looping”; a caption claimed that security forces began tossing tear gas and then shooting into the crowd, which may be the reason for the interruption.

Protest leaders are also accusing the regime of staging a “false flag” incident to justify cracking down on the movement. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack on the shrine in Shiraz which left many worshippers dead and injured, but the regime has chosen to blame the protest movement.

In the meantime, the BBC notes that while other protests against the regime have “fizzled” in the past, this one seems to be only picking up more steam. The regime hasn’t yet utilized the “full force” of its security apparatus to put it down, but if they do, “Iran's protesters, especially a new generation of women and men, also seem ready to do whatever it takes to change their lives, and much more.”

So there you have it. The "morality police" can handle one or two disagreeable women, but if they all take to the streets then it is a “bad look” internationally for the regime “crack down” too hard on them, if they do care about the "look." We can presume that most of the protesters who have been killed so far are males, but if the authorities make the mistake of turning female protesters en mass into victims of brutality on a wide scale, there will be plenty of support for them to continue this movement toward greater freedom to do as they wish, or at least wear what they wish.

That wasn’t the case in Russia, where women already have those rights and take them for granted, and they don’t have to worry about going to the battlefield for slaughter. The war isn't "real" for them in many respects; but for Iranian women, there is a "war" to be won, and personal reasons to go as far as protest takes them.