(CNN)  -- Like thousands of other Iranian women, Parisa took to Tehran's streets this week, her heart brimming with hope. "Change," said the placards around her.





Iranian women demonstrate Thursday in the streets of Tehran, the capital city.





The young Iranian woman eyed the crowd and pondered the possibility that the rest of her life might be different from her mother's. She could see glimmers of a future free from discrimination -- and all the symbols of it, including the head-covering the government requires her to wear every day.





Women, regarded as second-class citizens under Iranian law, have been noticeably front and center of the massive demonstrations that have unfolded since the presidential election a week ago. Iranians are protesting what they consider a fraudulent vote count favoring hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but for many women like Parisa, the demonstrations are just as much about taking Iran one step closer to democracy.





"Women have become primary agents of change in Iran," said Nayereh Tohidi, chairwoman of the Gender and Women's Studies Department at California State University, Northridge.





The remarkable images show women with uncovered heads who are unafraid to speak their minds and crowds that are not segregated -- both the opposite of the norm in Iran, Tohidi said.





She said a long-brewing women's movement may finally be manifesting itself on the streets and empowering women like Parisa.





"This regime is against all humanity, more specifically against all women," said Parisa, whom CNN is not fully identifying for security reasons.





"I see lots of girls and women in these demonstrations," she said. "They are all angry, ready to explode, scream out and let the world hear their voice. I want the world to know that as a woman in this country, I have no freedom."





Though 63 percent of all Iranian college students are women, the law of the land does not see men and women as equal. In cases of divorce, child custody, inheritance and crime, women do not have the same legal rights as men.





In the past four years, Ahmadinejad has made it easier for men to practice polygamy and harder for women to access public sector jobs, according to CNN's Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour.





Amanpour, who has reported extensively from Iran, describes Iranian women as "very strong." In 1997, it was women who came out along with young people to put reformist candidate Mohammed Khatami into the presidency, Amanpour said.





Increasingly, women's voices are gaining power as their numbers rise and their demands grow louder.





Even the granddaughter of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the architect of the Islamic republic, voiced frustration at the way women are treated.





"Women are just living things," Zahra Eshraghi told Amanpour. "A woman is there to fill her husband's stomach and raise children."





For the first time, women were allowed to register for the presidential race, though none, including Eshraghi, were deemed fit to run by the religious body that vets candidates. But women's issues surfaced in the campaign.





That was partly the result of a women's movement comprised of educated, urban, middle-class women that has grown in recent years with the addition of more conservative and poorer women, said Tohidi, a longtime observer of women's rights in Iran. Ironically, traditional women first gained voice under the clerics.





"Khomeini needed their votes, so he encouraged them to be publicly active," Tohidi said.





The middle-class women who enjoyed certain freedoms in prerevolutionary days refused to turn back, while a new generation of conservatives were awakened to feminism.





In 2003, lawyer and women's rights activist Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize, providing a "big boost" for Iranian women, Tohidi said.





At the same time, private organizations and charities that deal with women's issues blossomed under the presidency of reformist Mohammed Khatami, growing by as much as 700 percent, Tohidi said.





Marriage age increased as more women opted to marry for love, instead
Who has been noticeable?
Women,
question: Who has been noticeable?, answer: Women,