I got my hair cut today at a salon I’ve never been to before and for the record I’m very satisfied with it, but don’t worry, this isn’t a round-up of the latest in bangs and curls. My stylist was originally from Iran, and when I sat down in her chair she told me she had a niece in Tehran who is around my age. She told me that she comes from a family of strong, smart, beautiful Iranian women. Her mother could’ve been president, she said, if Iranian women’s circumstances were different, and maybe her niece will be someday.

Her niece is an artist studying to be an architect who supports herself by painting murals, mostly in elementary schools. One day, she told me, her niece was working on a mural when she was stopped by a member of the secret police who informed her that her headscarf was improperly loose and asked to write down her name. Without turning her eyes from her work, she refused to give him her name and refused to adjust the headscarf. She informed him that since she was underage, he could wait to speak with her father or her lawyer, and that unless he was willing to compensate her for the money she would lose by talking to him when she should be painting, he could wait quietly.

Luckily for her, the policeman must have been intimidated or amused and left her be. Her course of action could have had worse consequences, but she chose it anyway. This is a modern feminist. By her action she said to a power infinitely more oppressive than any American woman is likely to encounter: I am first a citizen and then an artist and though I am also a woman, I will not acquiesce to your or to anyone else’s opinion of what that should mean, regardless of the consequences.

I was humbled just hearing about her.