That was then, this is now — Iranian edition

Women protestors were part of the constitutional movement from its earliest stages.  They facilitated the strikes, lent their moral and financial support to the constitutionalists, and defended them physically against the forces of the shah.  In 1905 women reportedly created human barriers and protected the ‘ulama who had taken sanctuary at the Shah ‘Abd al-‘Azim Shrine from the armed government forces.  In the summer of 1906, when nationalists obtained sanctuary at the garden of the British legation, several thousand women gathered to join the strikers.

That is from Janet Afary’s quite interesting The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906-1911, Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, & the Origins of Feminism.