This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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Within hours after the joint U.S.-Israel operation against the Iranian regime over the weekend, the Women’s March organization posted to its Instagram account, “feminists vs. fascists.” In a surprise to actual feminists, the post also proclaimed “no war on Iran.” That’s right: To the organizers of the Women’s March, the governments fighting the Iranian regime are the fascists. Confused? Me too.
Think about how backwards that is for a moment. The regime has massacred over 32,000 of its own civilians in a matter of days, and some estimates suggest 300,000 more were wounded. Iran’s reckless expansionism is responsible for the deaths of perhaps one million civilians in nearby Arab countries, and the ayatollahs’ hands are also stained with the blood of thousands of American service members and civilians. Female protestors, including minors, have been sexually assaulted in the regime’s custody.
This oppression darkens my earliest memories. Growing up, many in our Jewish Iranian community were forced to hide their identities to blend in. When I was six years old, my family and I escaped Iran in a clandestine journey that took us across the Pakistani border on the back of an old truck, hidden under corn and burlap.
We have always known the horrors that could have awaited us if we had stayed. Iran’s women have been the faces of protest in their country, and they faced the full fury of their misogynistic government in 2022. After the regime roughly arrested Mahsa Amini, and she died in custody, thousands of her peers took to the streets. Regime enforcers violently raped nonviolent protestors in their attempt to silence them.
Women have almost no rights in the theocratic regime that has ruled Iran for the last 47 years. Even leaving home often requires permission from a woman’s husband, father, or closest male relative. All women are subject to a very strict dress code. Disregarding these or other requirements can lead to a woman being violated by regime enforcers. It’s no coincidence that Margaret Atwood drew inspiration from the Islamic Republic when writing her dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
This is why I am flabbergasted by purported “feminists” siding with the radical regime in Tehran. Even as Iranian Americans danced in the streets to celebrate the strikes on the dictatorship that has ruined their country, elite white feminists such as actress Jane Fonda had the gall to “protest” America’s intervention. Women’s media sites, usually the first to call out anything they perceive as women’s oppression, are suddenly silent. The Cut hasn’t used its Iran tag for three years. Elle, which ran a 2023 article on “Decoding Protest Fashion in Iran,” now seems to have nothing to say.
Since the Islamic Republic regime first took the people of Iran captive in 1979, it has positioned America as its primary global adversary. Iran’s long-suffering people, themselves among the most pro-American populations in the Middle East, are even now being butchered by the dictatorship in the face of their demands for change.
Here in America, Iran is a threat to our democracy and public discourse. Iran has worked to seed unrest on college campuses and erode our institutions from within. Iran actively plotted to interfere in the 2024 U.S. election and has orchestrated assassination attempts against American journalists, officials, and even President Donald Trump. The Islamic Republic, even during negotiations, has signaled violent intentions by releasing AI-generated videos portraying the destruction of U.S. Navy vessels and calling upon America to dig 5,000 graves for our troops.
In these circumstances, can anyone really call it “feminist” to stand with this murderous regime and against the women of Iran? So, while celebrities and Instagram infographics worry over the United States’ military actions but refuse to celebrate the liberation of women in Iran, remember that you can’t take them seriously. Those who really stand for women’s rights in Iran know they will only be granted when the regime has been brought down for good.
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Dr. Sheila Nazarian is a Los Angeles physician whose family escaped to America from Iran. She starred in the Emmy-nominated Netflix series “Skin Decision: Before and After.”
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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