The Descent of Feminism

Using Women's Rights to Mobilise Mass Murder

Peter Kennard’s “Crushed Missile,” 1981.

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.”

Many gender-critical feminists rally to support Trump’s and Netanyahu’s machismo. “Get Iran while it is weak,” Baroness Clare Fox, founder and director of the think tank the Institute of Ideas, urged on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions. JK Rowling, the children’s author, describes John (aka India) Willoughby, a “trans woman” who positions himself as “#team Iran,” as a predictable “fan of a woman-hating, gay-hating, authoritarian regime.”

The feminist journalist Julie Bindel, writing an article for the Sun, reduces morality to a simple, childlike binary: “To support #TeamIran is to support anti-Semitism.” She resurrects the rape atrocity propaganda to which she and some other gender-critical feminists have been wedded since 7 October by claiming that those opposing Israel’s attack on Iran are condoning, even celebrating, “gang rapes by terrorists.”

Deploying the same simplistic fairy tale that pits good versus pure evil that she despises when transactivists do it, characterising her as evil personified, she argues that Israel is at the receiving end of “stupid, ignorant lefties” who are forming “a grotesque unholy alliance between Western far-left and Islamic far-right.” Rowling argues, “If you prioritise an ideology over giving clear and accurate information, you aren’t journalists, you’re propagandists.” Yet, Rowling retweeted Bindel’s article, uncritically wedded to Zionist propaganda, approvingly.

Bindel claims that she is left “wondering just what kind of a world #TeamIran supporters wish to live in.” Please allow me to elucidate.

Iranians desire a world where reckless, illegal, and unprovoked bombing of a sovereign nation—especially its civilian nuclear facilities—is condemned and opposed. They imagine a world free from global lawlessness, as seen in Gaza and the recent strikes on Iran. Similarly, Israel’s attacks on Gaza, driven by propaganda, have caused the deaths of over 57,800 of which the majority are innocent women and children. This in addition to the 40,000 people still missing and believed to be buried beneath the rubble of their homes. Since Israel has banned Western journalists, medics are left to provide factual information—rather than myths—about the inhumane atrocities carried out by “the most moral army in the world.” The attack on Iran has now killed over 900 people and wounded more than three thousand, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA), a US-based organisation.

Critics of Israel want to live in a world where, in Fazi’s terms, might does not make right—“a free-for-all where nothing is off limits: not the mass slaughter of civilians, not the bombing of nuclear sites, not even the complete sidelining of international institutions.” They desire a world that is not dystopian, where foreign men do not kill women to spare them from having to wear the hijab. Lastly, regarding women’s rights, they want feminists to critique phallic power, represented by narcissistic, emotionally charged Strong Men like Netanyahu and Trump, as dangerous and harmful to women and children.

An Iranian woman, Atieh Bakhtiar, responds to Rowling’s tweet that standing with Iran in this context is to endorse a woman-hating, gay-hating, authoritarian regime. Bakhtiar expresses great disappointment that Rowling thinks so little of Iranian women that she reduces them to victims of a regime, while mocking the entire nation from a position of “smug superiority.” It makes Rowling part of the same arrogance that “Iranian women have been fighting all along.” Bakhtiar continues:

Iranian women are fighting for freedom and democracy, not to trade one oppressive regime for a foreign flag and lose independence. We don’t want bombs, invasions, or fake saviours. We want our voices to be heard, not hijacked by people who think liberation comes from the sky with a foreign logo and an oil contract.

While Rowling says she's criticising the regime and not the people, “the tone, timing, and language lump all of us, Iranians, women, activists into the same basket.” It’s the kind of rhetoric, Bakhtiar argues, “that manufactures consent for bombing my country.” When your people are under threat and lives are at stake, this isn’t just a casual comment. It sows doubt, making outsiders feel the destruction of Iran is justified. Talk about the regime all you want, she insists, but when you speak about Iran “as if it’s nothing more than its worst rulers, you erase those of us fighting for change. And let’s be clear: bombs don’t have filters. They won’t spare the women she once claimed to stand with.”

With considerable arrogance, Netanyahu has just declared victory in the 12-day Israel-Iran war. Professor Mearsheimer argues that, contrary to his claims, Israel has failed to achieve its two main objectives. In fact, the bombing has made it less likely to accomplish either. First, even with US support, Israel did not dismantle Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, and attacking Iran increases the likelihood that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons, not reduce it. Second, Israel did not succeed in forcing regime change, and if anything, the regime now maintains greater control than before. Additionally, Iranian missiles and drones caused significant damage to Israel, which was running low on air defence missiles and lacked the resolve for a war of attrition—something the Iranians possessed.

The world still holds its breath, fearing it will be pulled into World War 3. But even without escalating to a global conflict, as Dave Smith argued against Konstantin Kisin, every US attempt at regime change in the Middle East, under the supposed goal of liberating the people, has failed miserably. For example, in Afghanistan, the cruel oppression of women and girls has worsened due to the failed regime change and the Taliban's triumphant return to power.

An obvious consequence for Iran after the recent attack is that people, who are not united in their views, will now come together in social solidarity against “the enemy.” Iranian women are highly educated and hold authority in the workplace. Nonetheless, the hijab remains mandatory, especially in rural areas, and punishment for not wearing it can be up to 15 years in prison. Still, women move and live without strict enforcement in urban areas like Tehran, where they are on the streets bareheaded. The enforcement of the death penalty for male homosexuality varies, and public executions for this are less common now, but the law still stands, and cases are reported sporadically. The attempt at regime change may end up tightening the oppression of women and denying their bodily autonomy and sexuality, but, as with Afghanistan, Trump and Netanyahu probably don’t care. Despite the naive, touching feminist faith in these men’s intentions, freeing Iranians from sexual oppression was never their real goal for regime change in the first place.