Feminists have been extremely vocal about how oppressive Western countries are towards women. Sexism is part of the Holy Trinity of “racist, sexist, and homophobic.”

We can argue all day about how oppressed women are or are not in the US and Europe, but at least we can all agree that women in most Muslim countries get a really raw deal, right? Well, yes and no. Islam is also a protected identity, so feminists tend to be as silent about oppression in Islamic countries as they are about the enslavement of the Uyghurs in China.

But Muslim women, as the bearers of the oppression, are standing up and fighting back. More power to them! It’s long past time that we in the West support rather than ignore them.

The two most obvious examples of what is actually a universal trend in Islamic countries are what is happening in Iran and Afghanistan. Both countries had periods when women in those countries were treated similarly to Western women, wearing western clothes and enjoying Western freedoms, but those periods are long in the past. From the 50’s to the 70’s Afghani women looked like this walking down the streets:

Imagine that. Pre-Soviet invasion Afghani women had lives under their own control. Iran under the Shah, for all his faults, was similarly more friendly to female autonomy. Women had both political and cultural power under the Shah. Imagine this scene in today’s Iran:

Women in both these countries were abandoned to Islamist oppression during the Carter years. Afghanistan due to Carter’s weakness in dealing with the Soviets, and Iran because Carter thought the Shah was not nice enough to support. Obviously Carter didn’t understand what the Shah was up against in opposition, and by abandoning the Shah because his human rights record wasn’t perfectly clean led to the installation of a regime that doesn’t believe in human rights at all.

Unsurprisingly Joe Biden’s policies have made things even worse for women in both countries, as he abandoned Afghani women to the Taliban and is ignoring the plight of Iranian women in his foolish pursuit of a deal with the Mullahs. His policies here, as elsewhere, are horribly misguided and destructive in the extreme.

Still, after decades of being treated worse than dogs, women are standing up and risking (and losing) their lives fighting for themselves.

Iran has morality police who harass women mercilessly for any behavior that violates their delicate sensibilities, and they recently detained and killed a young women who refused to comply. Her name was Mahsa Amini. She should be a hero to us all.

Her sacrifice sparked a movement–almost a revolt–led by Iranian women who are standing up to the bullies and murderers of the regime and their allies. The movement has been spreading, while more and more women are being killed to suppress it.

She was full of life
Her name is Nika Shakarami. She was only 17.
Nika joined #IranProtests on Sept 20. Ten days later her family was asked to go to Kahrizak prison to get her body. The authorities didn’t allow the family to have a funeral for her while arresting her aunt & uncle pic.twitter.com/oYcqVzcztZ

— Nafiseh Kohnavard (@nafisehkBBC) October 4, 2022

Young women who yearn for freedom in Iran deserve our unconditional support, yet we are ignoring them because Biden is desperate to restart the Obama policy of appeasement to the Iranian regime.

If you want to frame a picture #iran #IranProtests #IranProtests2022 pic.twitter.com/p8aZ0OQrVn

— SquishyBanana (@SquishyBanana4) October 4, 2022

Afghani women, whose suffering under Taliban rule is unspeakable, are standing up to their regime as well. These women were abandoned by Joe Biden in his rush to retreat from Afghanistan, and they are doing what they can to fend for themselves. I fear that their fate may be even worse than for women in Iran, as the Taliban have less to lose in violent suppression on a mass scale.

Iran still has connections to the rest of the world, weak as they are. They aspire to be a worldwide power and to be able to take on the US in the region, and US allies as well. Afghani Taliban’s aspirations are more local, and they appear to prefer Medieval life.

Brave Afghan women out on the streets again, demanding their basic human rights pic.twitter.com/kWhZw8cz4O

— Yalda Hakim (@BBCYaldaHakim) October 2, 2022

I have no idea what the US can do to help Afghani women. That ship has sailed. A few thousand troops stiffening the spines of the Afghan army might have kept the regime in power at little cost (casualties had dropped to zero under Trump), but that ship sailed when Biden abandoned the country.

But in Iran we have some options. First of all, we can stop the appeasement strategy so enthusiastically pursued by Biden. We can redouble our efforts to isolate Iran, and we can cut off their ties to the world economy, such as they are. Instead we have gone the other direction.

Doing so would provide important ancillary benefits. Saudi Arabia is desperately worried about Iran, and one of the reasons they are engaged in an economic war with the US is our shift in strategy toward the rogue country. Reversing our course on Iran would improve relations with Saudi Arabia. While the Saudis are imperfect, they are far better both in human rights and in relations with the West. They are even quietly allying themselves with Israel, while simultaneously loosening restrictions on women and modernizing their laws and attitudes.

The status of women in conservative Islamic regimes is one of the great moral stains of our time. Let’s help where we can.