Iran and the United States. Two countries that we would think are diametrically opposed, but which have more similarities than we think lately. Both American and Iranian women are forced to fight for the respect of their fundamental rights.
In the country of Uncle Sam, where the principle of freedom is nevertheless overused and set up as a fundamental value, we have witnessed since the advent of the presidency of Donald Trump a decline in the right to abortion and it is envisaged that other rights taken for granted will be flouted with a Supreme Court positioned resolutely on the right by the appointments of judges by the former Republican president.
And, in Iran, the Islamic Republic, which crushed any desire for the emancipation of women with its 1979 revolution, seems to be wavering under numerous demonstrations against the regime, harshly repressed by the authorities, which have their origin in the death of a young woman who arose following her arrest by Iranian police for a minor violation of the Islamic dress code.
The women of these two nations now find themselves at a crucial historical moment. American women must vote en masse in the upcoming midterm elections to turn the tide on their waning freedom and choice to decide what to do with their bodies. On their side, the Iranian women will continue the struggle courageously to get out of the patriarchal yoke of the ayatollahs, which has lasted for more than forty years.
American women should learn from the struggle of Iranian women to prevent further regression of their rights from happening in the United States. It is in a few weeks, during these midterm elections, that the path that the American people will take will be decided. A low rate of participation by women would show their approval of restricted access to abortion and would concretize the stranglehold for decades of religion and the Republican Party on American political institutions. And then a reversal would prove very difficult, except perhaps at the cost of bloody demonstrations like the ones we are currently experiencing in Iran…
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