Sweden’s government has declared itself the “first feminist government in the world.” According to their website, “A feminist government ensures that a gender equality perspective is brought into policy-making on a broad front, both nationally and internationally. Women and men must have the same power to shape society and their own lives.”
So, when that feminist government visited Iran, one might expect that the empowered women in this empowered government would be empowered enough to avoid donning the hijab, the Islamic female head covering. Nope. Meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the women universally put on headscarves. Apparently feminism only demonstrates its strength when dealing with Western men who are willing to work with feminists, not when dealing with patriarchal societies intent on the subjugation and repression of women. As UN Watch reports, “Trade Minister Ann Linde and other female members walked before Iranian President Rouhani on Saturday wearing Hijabs, Chadors, and long coats, in deference to Iran’s oppressive and unjust modesty laws which make the Hijab compulsory.”
Such a show of submission follows hard on Deputy Prime Minister Isabella Lovin explaining to the world that Donald Trump represented a threat to female rights.
This is indicative of the focus of Western feminists. With the vast majority of sexism wiped off the map in Western countries – women in the United States comprise a majority of college students and graduate students, and earn more than men in 147 out of 150 highly-populated cities if they have no children – instead of turning internationally, the feminist left has found new windmills to pursue: forcing other people to pay for women’s childrearing, fighting for the ability to kill babies in the womb at any stage of pregnancy.
That means abandoning women living in actual patriarchal autocracies.
Why won’t Western feminists fight for women living under tyranny? Because that would mean empowering men in their own countries to fight radical Islam. And that would undermine the pacifistic view of Western civilization that too many feminists think is a prerequisite for female equality. A muscular defense of Western civilization makes too many feminists uncomfortable – they see that as merely the flip side of the Islamist coin, which is why the only time they bother ripping radical Islam is when they’re comparing Donald Trump to the Taliban.
The result: women who are actually oppressed have no feminist allies in the West. And that means they’re on their own, as those same feminists kowtow to their would-be oppressors.