The reign of Pahlavi I marks one of the most significant, impactful, and challenging historical turning points for Iranian society. During the reign of Reza Khan, the state's top-down modernization program was implemented under the direction of the king and his close associates. One of the earliest steps towards modernizing society and imitating Western countries was the reform of men's and women's clothing, for which Reza Khan issued numerous decrees. The "Unveiling" project was among the most critical cultural transformations pursued by his administration. Despite the government's determination to enforce it and the violent approach of officials toward those who disobeyed, it faced strong reactions from various social actors in Iran. Reza Khan's unveiling project was officially initiated in December 1935. According to this policy, Iranian women and girls, for whom hijab was an integral part of their cultural and religious identity, were required to remove their veils. Naturally, Iranian women and families, adhering to their Islamic and national value-normative system, resisted this planned cultural reform initiated by the ruling apparatus and intellectual elites. They insisted on their principles and sought to preserve their historical and religious traditions. The resistance against this project was not uniform; rather, it manifested in various forms, which can be classified into three categories. The first type was passive resistance, characterized by withdrawal from confrontation. The main strategies of this group included migration and seclusion. Some Iranian families, unable to actively resist a law supported by the state, chose to emigrate to neighboring 
countries such as Iraq to evade the implementation of Reza Shah’s decree. Similarly, some Iranian women and girls, acknowledging social constraints, withdrew from public life, embraced seclusion, and remained steadfast in observing their religious values and norms.
The second type of resistance was political resistance, which encompassed a range of reactions, including political protests, clashes with police officers, and filing petitions to legal authorities such as the parliament and the prime minister. However, the third type of resistance, which is the focus of this study, was cultural resistance by social actors who sought to preserve religious traditions against Reza Khan’s wave of modernization in contemporary Iranian history. A significant portion of women, families, and the clergies were among the influential social forces in this resistance. Indeed, from a historical perspective, it is important to note that although the majority of Iranian families, women, and the clergies opposed the Unveiling project, there were also women, families, and religious figures who did not object to this transformation and aligned themselves with the shift from Iranian cultural traditions to Western cultural norms.
A historical examination of the unveiling project reveals various forms of resistance by Iranian women and families in the context of everyday life. To safeguard their religious beliefs without overtly confronting Reza Khan’s oppressive structure, Iranian women and girls employed personal creativity and individual agency. For instance, they designed long garments and hats that fully covered their hair as an alternative to the chador or wore wigs to maintain their religious dress code. Another example of resistance in everyday life context by Iranian families involved making changes in their use of public bathing facilities. Some families whose homes were near a bathhouse facilitated access for their neighbors by allowing them to pass through rooftops, while wealthier families began constructing private bathhouses within their homes. In some cases, men in the neighborhood acted as lookouts along the route to the bathhouse, ensuring that women with hijab could safely access public bathhouse without fear of harassment by government officials (Jamshidiyha & Najafian Razavi, 2011, p. 46). Defiance of Reza Khan’s unveiling decree was not limited to ordinary women. Even the wives and daughters of government employees applied strategies such as feigning illness or traveling to avoid attending mixed-gender celebrations where Islamic dress codes were not observed. John Fiske, in Understanding Popular Culture, identifies various resistance strategies against dominant structures, including evasion as a means of escaping social and disciplinary controls, sidestepping restrictions, avoiding entrapment, and circumventing the regulations imposed by ruling authorities (Shafiei, 2014, p. 161).
Although the ruling structure holds considerable power in such confrontations, opposing actors and agents are not entirely powerless or passive. Michel de Certeau, a prominent theorist of everyday life, in his analytical approach to conflict and resistance in daily life, contrasts the dominant, rigid, and structured forces of power with the weaker yet creative, adaptable, and agile actors. These actors possess significant capacities to counter the strategies of the powerful and continuously outmaneuver the dominant structure through tactical resistance (Shafiei, 2014, p. 157).
The concept of resistance is both prevalent and complex in the fields of political sociology and cultural studies. Andy Bennett, in his seminal work Culture and Everyday Life, introduces subcultures as forms of resistance against the rising tide of modernity and globalization in the contemporary world. He discusses groups that adopt alternative and distinct lifestyles, actively rejecting and negating the fundamental beliefs, customs, and cultural practices that define modern and contemporary societies (Bennett, 2007, p. 255).
This study seeks to present a theoretical framework based on a historical-analytical narrative, utilizing official documents and reports from the police forces (Shahrbani) and the Ministry of Interior Affairs. It examines the backgrounds, characteristics, processes, and strategies of the resistance movements led by social forces defending religious and cultural traditions in Iran, particularly families and the clergies, against the Unveiling project. It appears that one of the most crucial elements of Iranian cultural resistance was the everyday resistance expressed through creative strategies against the coercive power of the ruling apparatus. A review of this historical period demonstrates that resistance did not always manifest in explicitly political movements or within the framework of social movements. Rather, it often emerged within the ordinary, daily lives of the people, shaping a unique and enduring form of defiance.