In November 2023, the French feminist organization La Parole Des Femmes initiated a discussion labeling the October 7th attacks by Hamas as "feminicide." This claim, spotlighting the gendered violence allegedly inflicted on Israeli women, remains controversial due to the lack of concrete evidence supporting the allegations of sexual abuse. Meanwhile, the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza starkly reveals a broader gendered crisis, underscoring the limitations and biases within Western feminism.
The Gendered Crisis in Gaza
By late November 2023, UN Women reported that two-thirds of Gaza's 14,000 casualties were women and children. With hospitals and essential medical infrastructure destroyed, reproductive rights have faced devastating setbacks, including a 300% increase in miscarriages. Women endure childbirth without anesthesia, while maternal malnutrition leads to a severe shortage of breast milk for infants.
Palestinian women also face systemic abuses beyond the humanitarian crisis. Accounts of sexual violence, torture, and inhumane treatment of female prisoners amplify the horrors. Many women are detained without due process, subjected to beatings, deprivation of basic necessities, and other forms of degradation. Arbitrary executions and targeted killings further exacerbate their plight, with social media flooded with evidence of these atrocities.
Western Feminism’s Cognitive Dissonance
Despite the stark gendered violence in Gaza, Western feminism has largely remained silent or selective in its advocacy. This absence highlights the movement's Eurocentric framework, which often excludes women of color and women from the Global South.
Palestinian women defy Western feminism's expectations by rejecting its narrowly defined ideals of liberation. They prioritize anti-colonial struggles over issues like equal pay, challenge the perception of the hijab as oppressive, and embrace large families as a form of resistance. This divergence disrupts the dominant narrative, leaving their struggles sidelined by mainstream feminists.
Moreover, the instrumentalization of feminism to justify military interventions in the Global South creates a legacy of distrust. This dissonance alienates women of color and reinforces skepticism toward Western feminist solidarity.
Bridging the Divide
The crisis in Gaza presents a crucial opportunity for Western feminists to redefine their movement. True solidarity requires challenging the patriarchal and imperialist structures that perpetuate global injustices. This includes scrutinizing the military-industrial complex and its role in enabling violence against Palestinian women.
With pivotal elections approaching in the EU and US, Western feminists must build meaningful alliances with women of color and the Global South. This involves acknowledging their grievances, understanding their distinct struggles, and addressing the historical appropriation of feminism to legitimize oppression.
Gaza’s tragedy calls for introspection and action—an invitation for Western feminism to broaden its scope, deepen its critique, and stand in genuine solidarity with women worldwide.
This is a thought-provoking article depicting the intersection of gender, geopolitics, and the limitations of Western feminist frameworks, particularly in the context of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. It highlights a glaring disparity in advocacy, pointing out how the selective engagement of Western feminism often overlooks or sidelines the unique struggles of women in the Global South.
Eurocentric feminism’s failure to address the systemic violence and oppression faced by Palestinian women, who endure severe challenges such as sexual violence, deprivation of basic rights, and the destruction of healthcare infrastructure. The race issue is prevalent in these situations because white feminism does not incorporate the women who do not look like them physically. They view ethnic women as subjugated and through…
It’s troubling that the framework of Western feminism often centers issues that do not resonate with women in the Global South—such as individualistic goals like career advancement or gender equality in the workplace—while ignoring the broader, often more urgent struggles faced by women living under occupation, colonialism, and imperialism.
As you noted, many Palestinian women do not conform to the Western feminist ideals that tend to be imposed on them. They may prioritize resistance to colonialism over gender-specific issues, and they may embrace practices (such as wearing the hijab or having large families) that are often misunderstood or critiqued by Western feminists. This divergence exposes the limitations of a movement that has historically failed to address the unique experiences of…
You raise a powerful point about the disconnect between Western feminism and the struggles of women in Gaza. The focus on gendered violence in Israel, while the systemic violence against Palestinian women in Gaza remains largely ignored, highlights the biases within the movement. It’s striking to see how, despite the severe gendered crisis in Gaza—ranging from reproductive rights setbacks to the torture and abuse of female prisoners—Western feminist organizations have been slow to act.
The argument about the cognitive dissonance in Western feminism is crucial. By prioritizing Eurocentric ideals and often overlooking the complexities of women's struggles in places like Gaza, the movement risks becoming detached from the realities that women outside of the West face. Palestinian women’s rejection of…
Thank you so much for highlighting a powerful critique of Western feminism’s selective advocacy and its failure to address the gendered crisis in Gaza. The statistics you highlight, such as the devastating impact on maternal health and the systemic abuses faced by Palestinian women, are both harrowing and necessary to acknowledge.
Your critique of the instrumentalization of feminism to justify military interventions raises important questions about the movement’s complicity in broader systems of oppression. How might Western feminists effectively dismantle these structures while building trust with women from the Global South?
This blog critically addresses the gender specific effects of the ongoing Gaza crisis and explores how Western feminism has largely failed Palestinian women in dealing with their specific struggles. The blog highlights the silence or selective attentions within Western feminist circles, particularly concerning the on-going atrocities that women in Gaza experience. The author goes on to argue that most forms of Western feminism are Eurocentric and therefore alienate women of color and women from the Global South from true solidarity. An important question then begs: how is Western feminism supposed to change so that it can hold a more inclusive perspective of women's experiences around the globe, especially in conflict zones like Gaza? Another question is how one can avoid…