A 23-year-old Iranian woman who refused to put on a headscarf was shot in the face by security forces with anti-riot pellets. A divorced mother who faced down police spent five nights in a communal jail cell with 32 other women. A healthcare worker who joined the demonstrations in Tehran fears she could lose her job. Antigovernment protests have swept across Iran since September, in one of the most serious challenges to the country’s ruling clerics. Young women from across Iranian society have joined and often led the demonstrations, spurred by the death last month of a young woman in police custody for allegedly breaching the country’s strict rules on women’s dress.