As the consolidation of power by Khomeini and his core supporters continued, left and liberal organizations, parties, figures, were suppressed and eliminated, and mandatory veiling for all women returned. This began with the ‘Islamification of offices’ in July 1980, when unveiled women were refused entry to government offices and public buildings, and banned from appearing unveiled at their work places under the risk of being fired. On the streets, unveiled women were attacked by revolutionaries.
Hijab was considered by conservative traditionalists as a sign of virtue, and thus unveiled women as the opposite. Rather than a sign of backwardness, unveiled women came to be seen as a symbol of Western cultural colonialism; Westoxication” (Gharbzadegi) or infatuation with western culture, education, art, consumer products etc., “a super-consumer” of products of Imperialism, a propagator of “corrupt Western culture”, undermining the traditionalist conception of “morals of society”, and as overly dressed up “bourgeois dolls”, who had lost their honor.
