Revision summary
The Red Lipstick Movement uses visible makeup as dissent against compulsory hijab and morality police, especially in Iran after 2022. The act claims the face and street as women’s civic space, not as fashion advertising. It sits with Woman, Life, Freedom and with feminist arguments that the personal and the bodily are political. Lipstick feminism in Western theory reclaimed makeup; the Iranian use is a harder human-rights refusal. Closed regimes leak through small, repeatable gestures when parties and press are blocked.
Model answer
Introduction
The Red Lipstick Movement is a feminist practice of dissent in which women paint a visible, ‘immodest’ mouth as a claim on the street. In Iran, after the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini in 2022 and through the Woman, Life, Freedom rising, red lipstick became a small, repeatable refusal of the morality police. The point is not cosmetics. It is the body as a rights-bearing public fact.
Body
What the act does
Compulsory hijab and the Guidance Patrol try to write women’s faces out of civic space. Lipstick, uncovered hair, and dancing in the street reverse the instruction. A red mouth is cheap, mobile and photographable. It says: this face is not the state’s property. Similar gestures appear in other autocratic settings where dress codes police gender — but the UPSC stem is read most clearly through Iran’s 2020s protests, not as a Western advertising slogan.
Feminist rights, not fashion
First-wave rights were the vote and the law. Second-wave rights named the personal as political. Lipstick feminism (a late-wave, often Western, strand) reclaimed makeup from the charge that it is only patriarchal display. The Iranian street use is harder. It is closer to Nawal El Saadawi and to bodily autonomy under theocracy than to a mall. Carole Pateman’s sexual contract, Nancy Fraser on public spheres, and Cynthia Enloe’s ‘where are the women?’ all help: the international is made in households and on pavements. When a regime beats women for a lock of hair, lipstick is a human-rights claim — expression, equality, freedom from cruel treatment — not a lifestyle brand.
Comparative politics
The movement shows how closed socialisation leaks. It also shows transnational feminist networks: diaspora video, #MahsaAmini, and UN Human Rights Council scrutiny. States reply with arrests, internet cuts and ‘hijab law’ amendments. Success is mixed: the Islamic Republic has not fallen; everyday non-compliance has widened. For PSIR, the lesson is that feminist rights are fought in the grammar of appearance when speech and parties are blocked. Say that clearly, without treating Iranian women as a metaphor for someone else’s culture war.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD R[Red lipstick] --> B[Body as public claim] B --> F[Feminist rights] I[Iran morality police] --> R W[Woman Life Freedom] --> R
Conclusion
- Red lipstick in this movement is a feminist rights-claim: the face in public against compulsory modesty. It is dissent you can wear when the podium is banned. Theory names it; Iranian women enacted it.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
The world currently has been in the throes of a twin process of 'democratic backsliding' and 'democratic backlash'. How would you explain this paradox?
Next question in the 2025 paper (Q2). View answer →
-
Is this only an Iranian story?
Iran is the clearest named case. Dress-code policing of women appears in other closed and hybrid regimes; the exam answer should explain the mechanism, not collect slogans.
-
Why ‘red’?
Red maximises visibility in photographs and against a grey uniformed state. The colour is tactical, not mystical.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2025 · Q1(b) · PSIR GS 2 · 10 marks
Neo-liberalism lightened neo-realism's dark view of international politics. Comment. -
2025 · Q1(c) · PSIR GS 2 · 10 marks
Explain the non-traditional security threats in the context of food and environmental crises. -
2025 · Q2(a) · PSIR GS 2 · 20 marks
The world currently has been in the throes of a twin process of 'democratic backsliding' and 'democratic backlash'. How would you explain this paradox? -
2025 · Q4(b) · PSIR GS 2 · 15 marks
How successful has the 'ASEAN Plus Three' been in addressing regional problems? Support your answer with specific examples -
2025 · Q4(c) · PSIR GS 2 · 15 marks
"Trump's return to the White House is a jolt to push the European Union to invest in its own defence and economic and technological revival." Comment -
2025 · Q5(b) · PSIR GS 2 · 10 marks
Would you agree with the contention that India's inclination to lean on a 'more aggressive hyper-realist posture' has gained a new momentum in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terrorist strike? Comment. -
2025 · Q6(c) · PSIR GS 2 · 15 marks
The tariff threats have pushed India and the European Union closer. Evaluate the India-EU partnership -
2025 · Q7(b) · PSIR GS 2 · 15 marks
Trump's unilateral imposition of reciprocal tariffs on scores of countries poses impending threat to the future of the rule-based multilateral global trading system under the WTO. What options do the WTO members have to salvage the organization?
More from this paper
Q1(a) · UPSC Mains 2025 · PSIR GS 2 · 10 marks
Discuss the psychological approach to the study of comparative politics.
Approaches to the Study of International Relations
The psychological approach studies personality, attitudes, civic culture and cognition in comparative politics. Lasswell, Adorno, Almond and Verba, Easton and later political psychology are the main lineage. It explains voting, protest, obedience and leadership better than a constitution or a class map alone. Surveys, experiments and psychobiography are typical methods. It is a layer, not a substitute for institutions and political economy.
Q1(b) · UPSC Mains 2025 · PSIR GS 2 · 10 marks
Neo-liberalism lightened neo-realism's dark view of international politics. Comment.
Comparative Politics
Waltzian neorealism pictures anarchy, self-help and relative gains as a dark constant. Keohane and Nye’s neoliberalism keeps anarchy but adds complex interdependence, regimes and absolute gains. Institutions reduce cheating and transaction costs; they do not create a world state. Ukraine, tariffs and health-governance shocks show both residual darkness and institutional repair. The ‘lightening’ is cooperation under anarchy, not the end of power politics.
Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2025 · PSIR GS 2 · 10 marks
Explain the non-traditional security threats in the context of food and environmental crises.
Comparative Politics
Non-traditional security covers harms beyond organised military attack: food, environment, health, cyber and crime. Food security is availability, access, utilisation and stability; war, climate and export bans can all break it. Environmental crisis is a threat multiplier through climate, water, disaster and migration. UNDP 1994 human security and Buzan’s sectors supply the theory. These shocks overload the state and also force cooperation through FAO, WHO, Paris and regional reserves.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.