Why are Western feminists silent on the war on Iranian women? | Women’s Rights
Title: Silence Surrounds Violence Against Women in Iran, Highlighting Gaps in Feminist Solidarity
In the years 2022-2023, Western feminist institutions fervently supported protests in Iran, characterized by women’s resistance against compulsory hijab. However, recent events reveal a stark contrast in this advocacy, as war escalates in the region and increasingly endangers the lives and education of women and girls.
An Iranian academic specializing in law, society, and gender underscores this troubling shift, highlighting what she describes as selective solidarity within feminist discourse. She notes that the recent armed conflict has not generated the same level of outrage or visibility as last year’s protests.
During a series of strikes in Iran, the Health Ministry reported the tragic deaths of 251 women and 216 children. Notably, a missile strike on a girls’ school in Minab claimed the lives of over 165 children, most of whom were young girls attending class. These were not random casualties; they were students engaged in education when their school was devastated by an American missile strike. The loss has buried not only their lives but also their dreams and futures beneath the rubble.
Despite this violence and its visibility, sustained feminist outrage has been noticeably absent compared to the responses seen a year earlier. During the 2022 protests, images of Iranian women discarding their headscarves were widely circulated and amplified across academic, activist, and media platforms. In stark contrast, the killing of women and children by Western-backed forces has not drawn a similar level of attention or solidarity.
The incident in Minab, where young girls were killed in their classrooms, should have prompted widespread awareness and prompted a serious dialogue within feminist movements. The continued silence raises questions about the recognition of gender-based violence in contexts where it is not easily aligned with existing feminist narratives.
Historically, war is not gender-neutral. Women and children are often among the primary victims. The destruction of the Minab school reflects not just a humanitarian crisis, but a deeply feminist one, representing the erasure of a generation at its inception. Yet, mainstream feminist narratives appear to be constraining the acknowledgment of this violence.
Communities in Minab are grappling with their profound losses. Mothers visit cemeteries nightly, holding remnants of their daughters’ lives as they mourn beside freshly dug graves. This suffering, essential to understanding the full impact of war, lacks the media traction that previous protests gained. The discrepancy between the recognition of women’s resistance against oppressive dress codes and their invisibility in the face of war raises significant concerns for the feminist movement.
In 2022, Iranian women’s bodies became symbols of resistance, framed within a narrative of liberation from patriarchal control. In 2023, however, these same bodies are often overlooked as casualties of war. This inconsistency illustrates a critical gap in feminist discourse.
Silence in the face of violence is not neutral; it can be perceived as complicity in the structures that facilitate such violence. The muted responses to the plight of mothers mourning their children reflect a troubling trend, suggesting that some women’s suffering is rendered invisible while others receive amplified recognition. This phenomenon is emblematic of a broader colonial mindset, which selectively acknowledges suffering based on geopolitical interests.
Furthermore, academic institutions, typically seen as bastions of critical thought, are themselves influenced by power dynamics that dictate the narratives permitted within their walls. Choices about what is voiced or silenced are often shaped by funding pressures and prevailing political climates.
Feminist activists in both Iran and the diaspora face their own challenges within these frameworks. Geopolitical expectations and colonial standards can constrain especially when addressing violence tied to Western powers. The mobilization observed in 2022 contrasts sharply with the current hesitance to address violence resulting from Western-backed actions.
Western feminism often engages when violence can be framed as oppressive or archaic but tends to retreat when confronting the complex realities of imperial violence. This avoidance is frequently justified through a dichotomous narrative that limits the scope of feminist critique.
If feminism cannot address the mourning of mothers beside the graves of their daughters with the same urgency it once applied to the resistance of hijab mandates, then its claims of universality become increasingly questionable. There remains a pressing need for a feminism that recognizes and responds to the full spectrum of women’s suffering, particularly in contexts marred by conflict.
As mothers continue to mourn their lost daughters, the silence surrounding these events begs the question: what is the role of feminism if it cannot adequately address these grave injustices?
