"In response to the June 2025 war between Israel and Iran, mainstream media outlets - both Persian-language and international - largely fell into predictable camps, either backing their preferred state actor or maintaining strategic silence about favored governments' actions. Yet this binary framing has systematically erased the perspectives of Iranian leftist feminists who, even while facing brutal repression from their own government, refuse to be co-opted into supporting external military intervention."
"This erasure of grassroots voices occurred even as many civil society organizations and groups in Iran (including the Iranian Writers' Association, teachers' unions, workers' organizations, and others) explicitly issued statements condemning Israel's attack on Iran, while simultaneously acknowledging the oppression they had suffered under the government of the Islamic Republic. Similarly, Iranian leftist feminists, who embody the anti-authoritarian spirit of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, offer a crucial third way: rejecting both domestic oppression and imperial intervention."
Jina (Mahsa) Amini's death three years earlier and the resulting Woman, Life, Freedom movement continue to shape Iranian civil society. Iranian leftist feminists reject both domestic authoritarian oppression and external military intervention, offering a third way that maintains solidarity with oppressed peoples while refusing to legitimize any form of domination. Mainstream Persian-language and international media largely polarized during the June 2025 Israel-Iran war, often backing state actors or remaining silent, which erased grassroots perspectives. Many civil society organizations in Iran condemned Israel's attack while simultaneously acknowledging repression by the Islamic Republic. Independent progressive voices face a persistent crisis of visibility and representation.
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