What is it about?
After the death of Iranian football fan Sahar Khodayari in 2019, #BlueGirl became a global symbol of women’s exclusion from football stadiums. Nazanin Shahrokni and I examine how news coverage and digital activism transformed pity into outrage and calls for action. Finally, we consider the repercussions of a politics based on pity. We also explore what these powerful stories obscured: Sahar’s complex life, Iranian women’s own agency and long history of organizing, and international actors’ roles in sustaining inequality.
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Photo by Shahriyar Payvar on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Campaigns can draw attention to injustice while reproducing stereotypes of helpless women and benevolent outside rescuers. This article asks whose voices are amplified, whose histories disappear, and who gains the authority to define a problem and its solution. These questions matter for journalism, feminist activism and international solidarity.
Perspectives
Working with Nazanin Shahrokni, we wanted to understand how someone’s suffering becomes a public story, and who gains the authority to tell it. Our concern is how we can confront injustice while preserving the dignity, agency and histories of those whose lives are being represented. Solidarity also requires examining the responsibilities of those claiming to offer help.
Dr Spyros Sofos
Simon Fraser University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Mobilizing pity: the dialectics of narrative production and erasure in the case of Iran’s #BlueGirl, Globalizations, January 2021, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/14747731.2020.1864963.
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