The study of subjectivity and subject-making in post-revolutionary Iran requires some consideration of the contingency of state formation just after the revolution in 1979 and continuing for thirty years to the present, now defined by state actors’ severe responses to generally peaceful but massive public protests against the legitimacy of the 2009 presidential elections in the summer and fall of that year. Throughout the Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, and the post-revolutionary state’s domestic and foreign relations, one discourse has framed the Islamic republic’s broader discursive modes and that is anti-imperialism. The revolutionary aim of improving society through the rehabilitation of women, moreover, was part of the anti-imperialist tenor of the revolution, and thus situated women’s roles and status as central to post-revolutionary state-building processes. While this agenda unified many revolutionaries and eventual leaders, it nonetheless engendered subsequent compromises that have resulted in strategic shifts in the language of the revolution, citizens’ claims for equity and redress, especially women, and even formations of the state. In the ensuing years, the state’s blended Islamic and republican institutions produced a new form of rights talk, one seemingly re-legitimated in the post-revolutionary era. The reform period, in particular (1997 – 2005), motivated a vocal women’s movement to seek redress for grievances in the form of rights. Over the years, however, activists’ emphasis on rights has been plagued by setbacks and a backlash culminating in the 2009 clashes with state forces. This paper will explore the shifting terrain of rights and the formation of subjectivities, particularly among women and activists in the post-revolutionary period. Finally, with a focus on activism on behalf of vulnerable members of society, this paper will explore the stakes of representing claims of redress in terms of rights for the post-revolutionary Iranian state and how activists reclaim a space for protest in an increasingly authoritarian era.