Women's Rights in Iran and the Hypocrisy of the Progressive Left

Let’s Be Real

The progressive left, otherwise known as the far left, have become anything but progressive. Rather than championing gender equality, they have been known to normalise patriarchal and oppressive political structures abroad – particularly in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Western feminists and women’s rights organisations continuously legitimise the Iranian regime and normalise its treatment of women. When Sweden’s then trade minister, Ann Linde, who is a well known women’s rights campaigner, wore a hijab during a trade visit in Iran in 2017, it sparked outrage amongst Iranian women who saw her act of veiling as normalising the compulsory hijab law. In addition, the women's rights grassroots organisation, Code Pink, regularly travels to Iran for nothing more than photoshoots with Iranian regime officials. Such actions legitimise the Iranian regime and betray the women’s rights movement in Iran.

By contrast, the same Western organisations and feminists rallied against the Burkini Ban in France, labelling it Islamophobic and misogynistic due to its elimination of a Muslim women’s right to choose. However, in the case of Iranian women and their rights and freedoms, they are nowhere to be seen.

Ideological Obstinance

Their silence on Islamist extremist abuses of Iranian women is often based on preconceived views on Middle Eastern culture. Firstly, categorising the entire Middle East as one block is inherently racist. Secondly, to make the case that the Islamist extremist policies of the Islamic Republic have a role in Iranian culture is totally false.

Indeed, Iranian culture is historically liberal and secular when compared to other Middle Eastern countries. The core tenets of Iranian identity date back thousands of years before Islam. Not only is Iran a pre-Islamic nation, but its population has undergone a mass secularisation and liberalisation over the past 45 years, in defiance of living under the Islamic Republic.

Choosing to not condemn the misogynist policies of the Iranian regime is therefore based on wrongly held assumptions about Iranian culture and is ultimately a huge failure for the progressives and feminists, who should be defending the autonomy, rights, and freedoms of Iranian women.

Under the Islamic Republic, women have very few rights and freedoms. Laws entrenching gender inequality include banning women singing and dancing in public and restricting women’s travel without male consent. Iranian courts compound this disparity by valuing a woman's testimony as half that of a man. The legislation central to the oppression of Iranian women is the compulsory hijab law. Women face harsh fines, lashes, involuntary psychological treatment, draconian prison sentences, and even death for protesting compulsory hijab. Last April, the Islamic Republic introduced the “Noor” campaign which has seen Iranian authorities escalate their physical efforts to enforce the hijab laws and further empower the “morality police” which has led to a surge in violent crackdowns targeting women on Iranian streets.

Crucially, it is not about the hijab. Many hijab-wearing women also oppose the compulsory hijab law. It is instead about a women's right to have control over her own body. Iranian women have protested the mandatory hijab law since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. From the 1979 protests to today's "Women, Life, Freedom" movement following the death of Mahsa Jina Amini, Iranian women continue their fight for freedom.

Despite this, so-called progressives and feminists have shockingly diminished the women’s rights abuses of the Iranian regime. In 2019, Iranian American writer Hoda Katebi discounted the significance of the imposition of compulsory hijab by referring to the regime’s so-called morality enforcers as the “fashion police”, who target women for “fashion faux pas”.

Western Infiltration

When I speak to Iranian women in the West, they tell me that they often feel silenced when speaking about their experiences of living under an Islamist extremist regime – and are told that their stories will result in Islamophobia.

Last month, an Australian Senator, Fatima Peyman, told Iranian state-owned news outlet Press TV that the Islamic Republic of Iran is an "incredible" place for women and claimed Western criticism of the regime was "propaganda." While Senator Peyman has apologised, this not only exposes an illiteracy about Iranian culture and its women’s rights movement, but also the anti-West ideology of the progressive left. This anti-West ideology is founded in the opposition of Western Imperialism and leads to progressives downplaying the Iranian regime's oppressive actions and aligning with the Iranian regime due its opposition to the West.

This anti-West stance has resulted in Western progressives jumping into bed with the Islamists in what can only be described as a toxic romance. For decades now there has been an incomprehensible alliance between the far left and Islamists. Silence in the face of the extreme persecution of Iranian women is a symptom of mainstreaming this alliance. Genuine progressives and feminists must actively resist this trend by defending the brave women of Iran instead of normalising the actions of their oppressors.

The true female heroes are Iranian women. They are in the frontlines of the war against misogyny. If the progressive left does not change their tact, they will be remembered for standing on the wrong side of history. And make no mistake, Iranian women will not forget.

Jemima Shelley

Senior Research Analyst | United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI)