Iranian Feminist Says Western Feminists Make Things Worse for Her Cause at Home

Noted Iranian feminist Masih Alinejad wants her feminist counterparts in the West to stop what they think is being helpful or respectful.

Iranian Feminist on How Western Liberals Are Making Women's Lives Worse in Her Country https://t.co/gvvCfTP5bu pic.twitter.com/ihuNtk22KQ

— TheWrap (@TheWrap) June 13, 2018

Speaking Wednesday at a “Power Women Breakfast” sponsored by entertainment site The Wrap, Alinejad said, “I keep hearing in the West especially, Western feminists who go to my country — the female politicians — we don’t want to break the country’s law,” which they use as an excuse to adopt the dress code forced on women by the country’s Islamic regime.

Alinejad explained that the women of Iran “don’t want to be slaves,” and “told by men or the law of the Islamic Republic of Iran what to wear.”

She insists that — as many Westerners suggest — this isn’t a “cultural issue” because “before the revolution we had the right to choose what we wanted to wear in Iran. Compulsion was never part of Iranian culture.”

The recap post also says that Alinejad told the audience it was a “mistake” that “some Western feminists resisted legitimate criticism of the regime out of a desire not to appear in line with the policies of President Donald Trump.”

Many Western leftists try to celebrate the hijab in an effort to embrace diversity. One Australian city got a lot of backlash for exhorting its non-Muslim female residents to wear a hijab for three hours to raise “awareness and insight.” Dolce & Gabbana launched a line of high-fashion hijabs a couple of years ago. Retail giant Macy’s has its own “hijab brand.”

This rush to earn diversity brownie points is highly offensive to many Muslim women. Even The Huffington Post acknowledges that the hijab is not a symbol of freedom (as Coca Cola’s most recent Super Bowl ad suggested) but “a symbol of the fact that women in Islam are second class citizens and that this status is encoded in both sacred text and tradition, enforced by culture and law.”

If the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions, perhaps the road to freedom for some can only be built after the abandonment of virtue-signaling.