The Double Standards in Global Feminism and Human Rights Advocacy
While some Western feminists vocally condemn compulsory dress codes for Iranian women, far fewer raise their voices against the U.S.–Israeli airstrike that killed 165 schoolgirls. This contrast raises critical questions about the hierarchy of human rights concerns in global activism.
Ashok Swain’s Challenge to Western Feminists
Ashok Swain, Head of the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, has called out this inconsistency.
He asked:
“Those Western feminists, who are angry with Iranian regime and Khamenei for forcing Iranian women to wear headscarves — why aren’t they angry over the killing of 165 Iranian girls killed in an elementary school by the US_Israel bombing?”
A Question of Priorities
A Question of PrioritiesThis silence raises a deeper question about the selective lens of global activism: why do human rights voices amplify certain injustices yet remain muted when the victims are inconvenient to the Western narrative?
Can we then argue that, in the hands of powerful geopolitical systems, feminism itself sometimes becomes a tool of influence and pressure against target countries, rather than a universal struggle for women’s rights?