Feminist silence: Hamas's sexual violence

In November 2023, the UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy penned a poem, "We See You," celebrating the triumph of female soccer players. Success of women in traditional men's sports is certainly something to celebrate. Even so, a Poet Laureate's task is surely also to reflect deep contemporary issues affecting the nation. Duffy, a devoted feminist, gender activist, and supporter of the oppressed, has yet to address the most seminal issue of the moment for women's welfare: the horrific and systemic gender-based violence suffered by innocent Israeli girls and women, many raped to death, abused, tortured, massacred, with their sexual organs carved from their bodies by Hamas murderers on October 7, 2023. Perhaps she still might comment or pen an emotive poem, perhaps not.

The reality is that for all advocates for women's welfare, especially in the area of sexual violence, the crucial concern at this time should be the terror perpetrated on defenceless females of all ages through acts of sexual depravity, torture, and death by Hamas in Israel on October 7.

The moral obligation of lovers of peace, and those who hold to the sanctity of human life, is to speak out against injustice. This is particularly so in crimes of violence against the defenceless. It is therefore fitting to expect women's rights groups to speak out on behalf of traumatized females of all ethnic and religious categories. This approach was ratified in by Nobel Peace Prize winner Eli Wiesel in his 1986 acceptance speech:

Archbishop Charles Chaput remarked that "tolerating grave evil within a society is itself a form of serious evil."

By and large, citizens of many nations are outraged at the lack of widespread condemnation of atrocities purposefully inflicted on vulnerable females of all ages, from toddlers to seniors, by Hamas terror squads on October 7. Particularly shocking is the paucity of denunciation by post-modern Western feminists. To his credit, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken immediately issued a statement to the effect that Hamas violence against Israeli women was "beyond anything that I've seen." In an oblique allusion to Wiesel's principle, Blinken questioned "why countries, leaders, international organizations were so slow to focus on this." Blinken, however, overlooks the inference that the Biden Administration's promotion of leftist, neo-Marxist, identity construals, particularly that of radical feminism, could be a pertinent factor.

In November 2023, it was reported that the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, notwithstanding overwhelming evidence to the contrary, claimed the evidence against Hamas "was 'not solid' enough to warrant a statement" -- to which London's Victims' Commissioner, Claire Waxman, replied:

That is the crux of the matter, namely, widespread hypocrisy, apparently emanating from pervasive anti-Semitism, which intersects with anti-Zionism and extreme feminist gender ideology.

The following instances clearly show the prejudice of certain women's groups when it comes to Jewish and Israeli victims of sexual violence arising from October 7 events:

To be expected, radical feminist groups rebel against criticism of their failure to firmly condemn Hamas's sexual assaults. An article published February 29, 2024 in Portside Magazine, by an anonymous group, projected the blame onto Israel:

They did not write a single word condemning Hamas's use of systemic rape and mutilation as terror.

In striving for purported social justice, contemporary radical feminists seem to perceive crucial issues like race and gender through the lens of "critical race theory." In terms of ethnicity, social revolutionaries allege that Western culture is systemically biased against minorities. The feminists themselves, however, are biased against Jews. Typical Marxist revolutionary policy dictates that the oppressed class, the "workers," should overthrow the masters, the "captains of industry" who control them. For feminists, the same principles apply to issues of gender. In their solipsistic view, a reset society along lines that are supposedly more egalitarian is required, thereby entrenching a bigoted form of social justice.

Marxian class-dualist theory, the foundation of identity politics, ostensibly provides its followers with an ideological basis for viewing Palestinians as an oppressed class. This doctrine might explain the vociferous October 13 march in Hebron by Palestinian women, who are often all too familiar with femicidal crimes, in support of Hamas's attacks against Israeli females. These Palestinian feminists perhaps identify with Hamas as social liberators irrespective of terror heaped upon innocent females in the process, and possibly understand their own role in the conflict as part and parcel of tribal solidarity. Even so, their manifest Schadenfreude -- their delight at the sexual violence perpetrated upon females of a differing faith -- is there for all to witness.

In publicly aligning with terrorists, these Palestinian women, possibly feeling an obligation to their society, then go on to raise children as indoctrinated as they are, modelling to them a future of hatred and violence.

Erika Bachiochi, a lawyer, criticizing post-modern feminism, noted that the "enduing moral principles" which earlier feminist movements "employed to make a reasoned critique," no longer exist. Instead, she said, the aims of contemporary, woke, feminists are "bereft of noble purpose and ultimately dangerous."

Historian Paul Johnson also decried the primacy of ideology generally:

Early women's liberation movements, forerunners to present feminist activism, were founded to proclaim women's rights to social equality. Radical feminism, as a narrow expression of the original movement, fails spectacularly in exemplifying society's moral and ethical precepts. Its advocates appear to prioritize narcissistic, egocentric identity ideologies over the sanctity, dignity, and ontological security of the individual woman. They resent certain categories of other females, especially those who are not supporters of gender ideology, such as women who celebrate gender differences; women who have a high opinion of the nuclear family and their pivotal role in fostering it; women who understand civilization is founded on the crucial roles of wife, mother and family; and women who celebrate their femininity.

Finding ideological origins within cultural Marxism, these feminists seem to favour the underdogs of society, which is probably how they view themselves. They extol victory over the oppressive establishment whether by Hamas or any other revolutionary group. Revolutionary movements that result in rearrangement of the culture's systemic bias against some minority groups -- but not others -- and which are supposedly essential for attaining equality and social justice, are, in their view, to be glorified.

Radical feminist ideology is directed at all Western societies, with the religious precepts underpinning society's values a prime target for eradication. This is especially true against the Jewish people, as custodians of foundational values and purveyors of a reliance on facts, a trait many might find inconvenient. As in all instances where the termination of the Jews and their ancestral homeland is sought, the seminal issue is one of faith, land, and historical evidence. The exclusive claim by all revolutionary movements to legitimacy, purporting to act in the interests of fairness, freedom and economic opportunity -- as with Lenin's Russia, Mao's China, Castro's Cuba or Chavez and Maduro's Venezuela impoverishing their people -- makes Judaism a crucial target.

What else can be said to these "liberators of women of the world," these campaigners for women's rights, these supposed opponents of gender-based violence, these vociferous feminists allegedly in pursuit of social justice, and self-proclaimed advocates of the "sisterhood of all women" but, yes, "We see you" and your silence shocks all who actually do care about justice to the core.

©Gatestone Institute