Islamist policies toward women did not take root through force alone. Many women from the more religious sectors of society embraced the new conservative ideology and worked to enforce its repressive policies. The regime recruited others through subsidies to families of veterans and martyrs from the revolution and the war. Still others were “lateral actors” who paid lip service to the Islamist order in order to achieve their own goals.

By joining Islamist organizations, young men and women broke with the established conventions of Iranian society, turning their energy away from their families to support the state's social and political causes. For some women, political Islam was more than a tool of resistance against Western modernity; it was also a way to cultivate a Shiʿi-Muslim style of modernity and freedom from the yoke of parents. By taking jobs in revolutionary institutions, women gained financial and personal autonomy. Many also joined the war effort. As in other wars in other places, Iranian women claimed that if they were equal to men in facing death, they should be equal to them in life and receive the same benefits.

In the second decade of the revolution, some former Islamist activists cautiously reevaluated their political orientations. They realized that “Islamic” policies had not succeeded in developing the economy in such a way as to seriously transform the nation's industries, making Iran more competitive in a globalized world.