Social and political polarization, coupled with the immediacy of social media, often leads us to ignore nuances and complexities. On X, posts exceeding 280 characters are mocked with replies like “too much text”; on Instagram, the average viewing time for a reel is three seconds, which does not prevent many users from hurling insults at creators for not conveying something that was, in fact, said after those three seconds. Rigid and unchallengeable beliefs may help us cope with the anxiety, instability, and insecurity of our world, but they cannot provide a realistic vision that helps us transform it.

This problem is particularly noticeable when users react to posts about Iran, and especially about Iran, feminism, and the imperialist war launched by the United States and Israel against this oppressed nation, where a reactionary political regime is especially repressive toward women. No matter how many times we respond with the exploding-head emoji, the facts remain: the ayatollahs oppress women, Israeli bombs kill school-age girls, and Trump, an authoritarian and ally of the Saudi royal family, targets dictators in countries that — oh, what a coincidence! — have oil reserves.

Once Again: Where Are the Feminists?

Is there consensus within the feminist movement on this situation? No. Nor is there on the Left. Surprisingly, even among Trump’s supporters, there is debate over whether the U.S. should wage war on Iran! Reality is complex and full of contradictions.

Let’s speak on behalf of Bread and Roses, our socialist-feminist organization, which is internationalist, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and, of course, anti-patriarchal. In this war, we differentiate between oppressive nations and oppressed nations, even if we find their governments despicable. That is why we see it as our duty to fight for the political and military defeat of the United States and Israel in Iran.

Who can believe that the same leaders who massacred Palestinian women and girls — many of whom are facing allegations of sexually abusing girls — and who initiated these attacks by bombing an Iranian school and killing over 100 girls, will emancipate Iranian women with their missiles? Nothing can be expected from those who are politically and militarily responsible for the most horrific genocide of the 21st century, committed just 1,600 kilometers from Iran.

But we also recognize that no social force can be forged to confront the warmongering attacks of U.S. imperialism and colonialist Zionism while the ayatollahs’ theocratic regime unleashes relentless and bloody repression against women and all working people in Iran, as well as against the Kurdish population. That is why we use the slogan “Down with Trump and Netanyahu’s imperialist war on Iran!” while maintaining complete political independence from the anti-working-class, authoritarian, and repressive regime of the ayatollahs.

With Them, Not Over Them

Iranian women do not need the “protection” of the Islamic veil to guard against the lecherous glances of men, nor do they need the Western paternalism of ultraconservative political leaders or even progressive feminists who claim to “save” them from their oppressors.

They have the capacity to powerfully resist and confront oppression, as evidenced in 2022 by the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement launched after the Islamic regime’s Morality Police murdered Mahsa Amini. This spirit of resistance dates back even further, to when Iranian women were prominent figures in the 1979 revolution, which toppled the U.S.-supported monarch Reza Pahlavi, thanks to the radicalized masses organized in workers’ councils.

After the revolution, the ayatollahs’ dictatorship politically expropriated this monumental achievement, stifling a working class determined to seize its future. Yet they could not suppress the immeasurable force of those young Iranian women, who, with their miniskirts and strange new hairstyles, left universities, factories, and offices to take to the streets against the oppressive monarchy and the democratic imperialism that backed it.

Today’s “armed liberators” should be warned not to underestimate women who carry that fighting spirit in their memories. Nor should those who thought they could be tamed by covering them from head to toe and sending them home to the kitchen.

Socialist Feminists Cannot Look the Other Way

Faced with this complex situation, some on the Left and within the feminist movement advocate positions of “neither, nor” or “just end the war,” even calling for a return to diplomatic relations with the United States, as if this could magically happen just by saying it. They seem to believe this is a viable solution despite decades of U.S. sanctions that have plunged the Iranian people into misery — a form of imperial revenge against the 1979 revolution, which exiled the monarch who best represented imperialism’s plundering interests. There are also those who demand absolute silence on the crimes perpetrated by the ayatollah regime amid the fight against warmongering attacks. They do not want it even mentioned that half the population lives under devastating daily oppression.

Bread and Roses insists that it is urgent to mobilize women, the LGBTQ+ community, the entire working class, and oppressed peoples worldwide to defeat the United States and Israel, to secure the triumph of the oppressed nation, and to do so with total political independence from the Iranian regime. We stand with Iranian women in the struggle against imperialism, but we do not subordinate ourselves to the reactionary ayatollahs. We believe it essential to unite all anti-imperialist forces, especially in the United States, to fight for the defeat of Trump and Netanyahu in Iran, as well as to demand the withdrawal of all imperialist and colonialist troops from the region, the expulsion of U.S. imperialism from Venezuela and Cuba, and an end to the genocide in Palestine.

Trump, the Far Right, and their allies, such as Milei in Argentina, attack women’s and LGBTQ+ rights every day in their respective countries; they spew hate against feminism and exude misogyny in their government policies while displaying crude machismo in their public and private lives. If they succeed in this atrocious war, they will be emboldened to advance against all of us and our rights, anywhere in the world.

This is why feminists must join forces to build a large global movement against imperialist aggression, alongside the working class and youth across the planet. The history of Iranian women is itself a formidable source of inspiration.

This article was originally published in La Izquierda Diario under the title “Imperialist War, Ayatollahs, and Feminism: Always on the Side of Women!”

The post Feminists Must Fight Imperialism in Iran Without Supporting the Theocratic Regime appeared first on Left Voice.

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