The Hijab Controversy

Speaking of feminist hypocrisy, Iranian woman’s rights activist Masih Alinejad has called out her fellow feminists feminists for happily donning the hijab and imagining that they are striking out against oppression or some such.

Alinejad called the hijab:

… one of the most visible symbols of oppression for Muslim women in many countries…

Yes, indeed. Stand tall and proud for the oppression of women.

So, she took offense when New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern put on a hijab as a gesture of solidarity with her nation’s Muslims. And she took grave offense when ministers from the highly feminist government of Sweden donned the garment on visits to Iran. The same is true of feminists from the Netherlands, who also wore hijabs on visits to Iran… in order to avoid offending the mullahs.

That is, in order not to offend some of the worst misogynists on the planet.

Nothing like a feminist to sell out women in the name of a higher ideal. Nothing like a feminist to manifest cowardice when dealing with those who really oppress women.

The Daily Mail quotes Alinejad:

She said: 'Iranian women, they fight against the compulsory hijab and they are alone, they are on their own.  

'There were three female politicians from the Netherlands - they went to Iran the same day when one of the women of the White Wednesdays movement put her headscarf on a stick and waved it in public, she got arrested.

'The same day there were three female politicians from the Netherlands in Iran obeying compulsory hijab law without challenging it.

'The female politicians from Sweden - they were very well-known when they started to publish a picture to mock President Trump's Cabinet.

'I was like, I love this picture, it's a good way to criticise a male-dominated Cabinet.

'But what happened, the same feminists went to Iran. The same ministers in Iran, they obeyed compulsory hijab laws in front of the President.”

Of course, these women are all fight when it comes to Donald Trump. When it comes to the leading state oppressor of women, they are kittens.

Alinejad continued:

'I said to myself, when it comes to America, they are trying to say men and women are equal. But when it comes to [Iran] they are trying to send another message, that men are more equal than women.

'So the female politicians who go and visit Iran, the tourists, athletes, actresses - all of them, when they go to my beautiful country they say that this is a cultural issue, we wear it out of respect to the culture of Iran.

'Let me be clear with you: calling a discriminatory law a part of our culture - this is an insult to a nation.'     

So, feminists feel obliged to show respect to a regime that oppresses women. The Daily Mail explains the hijab law in Iran and reports on recent crackdowns on encroaching liberal tendencies:

The Islamic dress code, in place since the 1979 revolution, considers veiling obligatory for any female above 13 in Iran and says they should cover themselves from head to toe while disavowing any figure-hugging dress.

Breaking the rules can result in fines of up to 500,000 rials (£17) and up to two months in prison.

Earlier this year Ms Alinejad shared footage which appeared to show Iranian an being sprayed in the face with tear gas after going outside without a hijab. 

Iran arrested more than 7,000 people in 2018 after launching a wide-scale crackdown on protests during what is being called 'a year of shame' for the country.

Students, journalists, environmental activists, factory workers, lawyers, women’s rights activists, minority rights activists and trade unionists were all cuffed during the campaign of repression, according to Amnesty International.  

Strangely enough, we know every last detail about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. And yet, somehow or other, we never read in the mainstream media about the activities of the mullahs in Iran, about their misogyny, about their anti-Semitism, about their anti-Americanism and about their homophobia. And about their prisons, their torture and their executions.

Why do you think that that is?