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In Muslim majority countries around the world basic human rights are frequently denied to apostates, infidels, gays, women, journalists, and ethnic minorities. So it’s always struck me as strange when socially liberal progressives throw out accusations of Islamophobia at anyone who questions the faith.
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Follow any liberal political campaign in the U.S. and you’ll hear the feminist voice loud and clear. Third wave feminism has such a vocal presence in the American political discussion that I’m often left wondering if some of that energy wouldn’t be better applied elsewhere.
In the west women enjoy all of the same benefits and rights of citizenship as men. The same can’t be said about their sisters around the Muslim world — who find themselves being short changed over and over again in the freedom department at the hands of some major league misogynists.
Social liberals, feminists in particular, should be furious.
It’s time for feminists to quit playing t-ball and step up to the plate against a flamethrower, and right now the Iranian government is chucking 99 mph fastballs at women’s rights.
Iranian leadership has now gone so far as to monitor social media in their quest for material that might upset the prophet.
Recently, professional makeup artist Elnaz Golrokh and her husband had to flee Iran after a series of Instagram posts led to their arrest.
According to an AU News report,
“The couple are just two of dozens of models and fashion industry workers who have been arrested across the country as part of Iran’s continuing Spider II crackdown. The crackdown targets “un-Islamic acts” online such as female models posting images of themselves without their hair covered.”
Without their hair covered? Ever get a look at Kim Kardashian or Jen Selter’s Instagram pages? Hair is about the only thing that Instagram models in the west don’t take off during their photo shoots. The right to flash some flesh on film is constitutionally protected over here.
It didn’t stop there.
Model Elham Arab, typically seen wearing wedding dresses, was in court this week as well.
“All people love beauty and fame,” Arab said.
The prosecution offered a perfectly reasonable response…perfectly reasonable if you are an Iranian authority, hell bent on telling women that they can’t be seen wearing a garment widely understood to symbolize purity and virtue – really.
“They would like to be seen, but it is important to know what price they will pay to be seen. (Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari) Dowlatabadi was quoted by the state-owned Iran newspaper as saying: “We must fight with enemy’s actions in this area. “Of course our actions in this area will continue.”
Can you imagine the response if a prosecutor in the U.S. made a similar statement? Chances are they would soon find themselves unemployed, and with good reason. In the U.S. we expect our government to protect basic individual liberties, like say the right to wear a wedding dress and forgo the hijab.
That’s not the case in Iran where the government under President Hassan Rouhani has been waging a war on women, pornography, and ‘insulting Islamic sanctity.’
As Au News reported, police in Tehran have dedicated 7,000 plain clothes officers to enforcing the government mandated Islamic dress code.
That, by the way, is in addition to crackdowns on ‘journalists, filmmakers, writers and activists.’ Even music fans aren’t safe; in 2014 a group of people were arrested by Iranian authorities for dancing to the Pharrell song Happy.
So you’ll have to excuse me for being confused when I hear anyone on the left refer to the act of holding a door open for a woman, as a tool of the patriarchy. (No really it’s called benevolent sexism, and it is a thing that people believe exists).
If we’ve gotten to the point as a society where the biggest threat to social equality has the word “benevolent” in its description then perhaps it’s time to focus that outrage outward.
For my left leaning readers here’s food for thought; maybe it’s time to serve up a big dish of that feminist fury to the leadership in Iran.
This contributor is a Marine veteran that has served in the Middle East. Due to the sensitive nature of his current job, he has requested to remain anonymous.
