The story in two tellings

Two very different pictures of the situation facing women in Iran emerge from recent reporting. One account, rooted in the resistance movement inside the country, portrays Iranian women as courageous figures defying a repressive regime. The other, written from the vantage point of an Iranian academic, argues that international feminist solidarity has been selective, mobilizing for some victims of violence while ignoring others.

A regime crackdown and women's defiance

The Jerusalem Post's report, by Jonathan Harounoff, centers on the bravery of Iranian women in the face of state repression. The article recounts the January 2026 crackdown by regime authorities on protesters, which it says killed tens of thousands of men, women, and children. It weaves in personal stories: Raheleh Amiri, shot in the eye by regime forces during the 2022–2023 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, and left permanently blind in one eye; Shiva Amini, harassed for playing football with her hair uncovered and forced to flee; Gazelle Sharmahd, whose father was kidnapped, tortured, and executed by regime operatives in October 2024; and Sardar Pashaei, a world-class wrestler and former national team coach, who fled because of his Kurdish identity. The piece frames these women as symbols of resilience, noting that they 'roar louder than ever' despite attempts to silence them.

A critique of feminist silence

The second piece, published without a byline, takes a sharply different angle. Written by an Iranian woman academic, it argues that Western feminist institutions, which loudly supported Iranian women's protests against compulsory hijab in 2022–2023, have fallen silent now that war is killing women and girls. The author points to a missile strike on a girls' school in Minab, which she says killed over 165 children, most of them young girls. She cites Health Ministry figures from 40 days of strikes: 251 women and 216 children killed. The piece charges that this violence has not generated the kind of sustained feminist outrage seen in 2022, when images of women removing headscarves circulated globally. It calls the destruction of the school a feminist issue and a humanitarian crisis, accusing Western feminist institutions of silence on the killing of women, girls, and children by American and Israeli missiles.

Key claims

  • The Jerusalem Post reports that tens of thousands of people were killed in the January 2026 crackdown, a figure it does not attribute to any named source.
  • The same article presents individual accounts of women's suffering and resistance, reported by that outlet alone.
  • The Al Jazeera-affiliated piece claims an American strike on a girls' school in Minab killed over 165 children, citing Health Ministry data.
  • It also asserts that Western feminist institutions have been silent on such killings, a claim presented as the author's analytical conclusion.

Divergent emphases

These two reports share little beyond their subject matter. The Jerusalem Post frames the issue as one of internal oppression, with the regime as the primary villain and women as agents of resistance. The other focuses on external violence, accusing the United States and Israel of killing civilians and criticizing Western feminists for complicity through silence.

Notably, neither report engages substantively with the other's central claim. The Jerusalem Post does not mention American or Israeli strikes on girls' schools; the feminist critique does not address regime brutality against protesters. This siloed coverage leaves readers with two partial pictures, each emphasizing different victims and different perpetrators.

Perspectives

Resistance and resilience: The Jerusalem Post piece casts Iranian women as heroic figures battling a tyrannical regime, with the January 2026 crackdown as a recent example of state violence. It suggests solidarity with these women should be directed against the Islamic Republic.

Selective solidarity: The other piece argues that Western feminism has failed Iranian women by directing outrage only at certain forms of oppression—like compulsory hijab—while ignoring deaths from American and Israeli strikes. It implies that true solidarity would condemn all violence against women, regardless of who perpetrates it.