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TEHRAN: When Merat Behnam first gathered enough courage to ride her yellow scooter through the gridlocked streets of Iran ‘s capital to the coffee shop she runs, traffic wasn’t her main worry.

She instead girded herself for disapproving looks, verbal abuse and even being stopped by the police for being a women riding a motorbike in Tehran, something long frowned upon by hard-liners and conservative clerics in Iran.

But Behnam, 38, found herself broadly accepted on the road — and part of a wider reconsideration by women about societal expectations in Iran.

“It was a big deal for me,” Behnam said after riding up to her café on a recent day. “I didn’t really know how to go about it. In the beginning I was quite stressed, but gradually the way people treated me and their reactions encouraged me a lot.”

Two things in the past prevented women from driving motorbikes or scooters. First, police regulations in Iran’s Farsi language specifically refer to only “mardan” or “men” being able to obtain motorcycle licenses. 

“This issue is not a violation but a crime, and my colleagues will deal with these individuals, since none of these women currently have a driver’s license and we cannot act against the law,” Gen. Abulfazl Mousavipoor, Tehran’s traffic police chief, said in a report carried by the semiofficial ISNA news agency in September.

Then there’s the cultural aspect. While women can now hold jobs, political office and a car license, since its 1979 Islamic Revolution the country has imposed a strictly conservative, Shiite Islam understanding of conduct by women.

There’s been speculation the administration of reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, who campaigned on openness to the West before the war, may try to change the regulations to allow women to be licensed. 

“It’s time to move past the invisible walls of cultural judgment and bureaucratic rules,” the Shargh newspaper said in September. 

“For women, riding a motorcycle is not just a way to commute but a symbol of choice, independence and equal presence in society.”

Benham, says riding her motorbike also gave her the first positive interaction she’s had with the police.

“For the first time, a police officer — well, actually, a traffic officer — made me feel encouraged and safer. I could feel that there was some kind of support,” she said. “Even the times they gave me warnings, they were technical ones — like where to park, not to do certain things or to always wear a helmet.”