In the Aftermath of Israel’s Assault, Feminists in Iran Chart a Path Forward

As we mark the third anniversary of Jina (Mahsa) Amini’s death in Iran and the uprising that sparked the global Woman, Life, Freedom movement , the voices that courageously challenged authoritarianism at home find themselves navigating an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape. 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 interventio