The Descent of Feminism – Using Women’s Rights to Mobilise Mass Murder
In this first of a two-part analysis, she explores how women’s rights have been invoked to justify military aggression, particularly in the context of US and Israeli actions against Iran. The piece traces how a language once used to challenge authority is now being adopted by political leaders—and some feminist commentators—to defend it.
During a YouTube discussion hosted by Piers Morgan about the Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, Konstantin Kisin, a Russian-British author and satirist who supports Israel’s actions, jokingly claimed he had won the argument because his penis was much larger than either Morgan’s or his opponent’s, the American comedian Dave Smith. Smith had argued on behalf of Iran that the US-Israeli attack was illegitimate and would be counterproductive to bringing peace to the region. Friendly “bro” banter followed between Kisin and Morgan, with Morgan joking that everyone knows Smith is the most “well-hung” of the three.
What is it about some men and their penises—quite frankly, a small piece of unremarkable flesh? But then, what is it about some gender-critical feminists that instead of challenging male machismo and “bro” culture, and the harm it causes to women and children, they actually give it more weight? Feminist journalist Julie Bindel, for example, supports the idea that many people on pro-Palestinian marches are deeply anti-Semitic under the guise of being anti-imperialist. She reminds those who use the #TeamIran that Sharia law punishes male homosexuality by hanging men in public squares. She suggests that those who oppose the bombing of Iran are supporting a totalitarian regime and betraying the Iranian people, who could be freed through Western intervention.
The exchange between Kisin and Morgan can serve as a microcosm as to how male power is proudly displayed on the world stage by bullies Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. What is interesting is that they mobilise it through an appeal to women’s rights. Before 7 October, neither had been known for their feminist sympathies. In fact, to my knowledge, Trump faced one sexual misconduct civil suit by E. Jean Carroll which culminated after years of various women’s allegations of sexual misconduct. Despite Netanyahu’s and Trump’s previous lack of feminist credentials, both have engaged in feminist discourse about the trauma of rape. To justify Israel’s revenge attack on Gaza, they have repeatedly accused Hamas of systematic rape of Western women on 7 October and of being Muslim brutes no better than animals (and by extension, all Palestinian men).
Trump and Netanyahu have largely moved on from making their unsubstantiated rape allegations but have not abandoned their recently adopted feminist sympathies. Their rallying cry is no longer about rape (and beheaded babies) since the European governing elite are generally tolerant of the atrocities committed by Israel and the US in Gaza, such as the slaughter of Palestinian men gathering at small food-aid stations. Instead, they have rebranded themselves as allies of Iranians and advocates for Iranian women’s rights to choose what to wear, clearly gearing up for attempts at regime change.
The attack on Iran, a sovereign state, is supported by spineless, sycophantic, two-faced European leaders, including our Labour Government Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, who speak the language of peace while providing Israel and the US with the ideological and material means to carry it out. The bombing, they argue, was a defensive and, therefore, legal pre-emptive strike against the existential threat Iran poses to Israel, and by extension, to the West. Support for Israel does not divide along party lines. Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservative Party, writes: “Supporting Israel is right—it is necessary for our national security. Israelis are at the front line in the fight for the West and our shared values.”
John Mearsheimer, an American professor of International Relations, argues that Israel’s repeated claim of the Iranian nuclear threat is a tactic to justify an attack on Iran, long promoted by the Israeli Lobby in the US, because of Iran’s sympathies with the Palestinians. This attack will inevitably accelerate nuclear proliferation and increase, not decrease, the likelihood that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons. Iran was not bombed because it was close to developing a nuclear weapon, but precisely because it didn’t have one. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and others were all attacked, whereas North Korea has not been. The message the US and Israel have sent is that the only real guarantee against Western aggression is a nuclear arsenal. This will ignite a dangerous new arms race as more countries rush to acquire nuclear weapons, with catastrophic implications for global security.
After the US military was deployed to strike three of Iran’s nuclear facilities, Netanyahu immediately congratulated Trump on his “awesome and mighty righteous act.” Thomas Fazi, an Italian journalist, points out that Netanyahu is right that this attack could be remembered as a turning point, but not for Western liberation or a peaceful Middle East. A major consequence of Israel’s strike is that it “dealt a final, irreparable blow to what little remained of the post-war international legal and institutional framework.” This order has already been broken by 20 months of Western-backed genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. This latest attack on Iran makes it official:
Western powers no longer need to cloak their actions in legality, morality, or even the façade of diplomatic legitimacy. By bombing Iran, the US has openly declared that the only operative logic in foreign policy is that of raw, unrestrained violence. And while this logic is nothing new for the West—just look at the long list of nations invaded, bombed, regime-changed and destroyed over the past two decades alone, at the cost of millions of lives—at least in the past there was some attempt to manufacture consent or feign respect for international law.
Fazi argues that the attack on Iran is not only a threat to international security but also a serious risk to the remaining freedoms within the West. The Western ruling elites’ “open embrace of Mafia-style gangsterism abroad,” Fazi claims, means they will be less hesitant to ignore any remaining ethical, legal, constitutional, and democratic constraints at home. It signifies the end of the last illusions of a “rules-based order,” when the final safeguards of restraint were removed, and “when the world entered a particularly dangerous, chaotic, and ungoverned phase of global conflict.”
