At the Altar of Americanization: Women’s Rights and the Demonization of Islam in the West

In light of the recent unsigned article by a Greek media outlet titled “Iran: Man Kicked Woman in the Middle of the Street Because She Was Not Covering Her Head with a Hijab” (Proto Thema, 12.8.2025, 19:02), it is necessary to highlight specific points regarding the essential knowledge of the Islamic and Iranian worldview on the subject, which was simply reproduced by foreign media and non-governmental organizations.
Iranian society deeply respects tradition and is at the same time receptive to evolution, new technology and ideas that may come from other cultures. At the same time, however, this receptivity is done with a critical mind, and not uncritically, so that each time the “new” is compatible with tradition and does not transcend it. The same applies to human rights, especially of both sexes.
That is, Iran and the Islamic world in general have a distinct perception of human rights in terms of their legal framework. While the concept of “human rights” is institutionally Western-inspired based on the materialistic Enlightenment, Islam has its own spiritual perception of human rights, based on its own metaphysical tradition. The dress code in public has its own spiritual and social semiology, which is unknown to the Western eye.
Regarding the incident in question, it is clear that the attack on the woman was carried out by an ultra-conservative man of questionable mental stability. He acts unprovoked and unwarned to hit the woman in such a cruel way and then walks away so as not to attract the attention of passers-by. Such behavior is forbidden in Islamic tradition and law. It is undoubtedly an extreme event for Iranian conditions as self-defense is not encouraged by the country’s legal and political system. He should be arrested and brought to justice.
Some in the West seem to forget that for various reasons that women are unacceptably exposed to violence not only in the Islamic world but also in the Christian, Jewish and all religious contexts, in our country and throughout the world. In this particular case, the fragmentary connection of the event in question with the statements of the US-based Iranian dissident Masih Alinezad simply reproduces the chronic communication war of Western circles against Iran in the midst of the Iran-Israel-US truce.
In contrast to Western reports and the ever-increasing communication war campaign of demonization of the Islamic Republic of Iran by Western circles on the issue of women’s rights in relation to its dress code, it must be emphasized that Islam, like all religions, is the guardian of women’s rights, as they derive from their own nature and tradition. Each culture is distinct with its own independence.
In Iran, any isolated incidents of self-righteousness by passers-by against women who may not adequately apply the dress code constitute extreme acts of eccentric individuals that are not consistent with the law which constitutionally only the Iranian state applies through its competent services.
If some in the West now believe that women in Iran and the Islamic world should be Americanized simply for reasons of globalization in the name of a supposed “choice” which usually leads to a dead end, then these “some” have nothing to do but look at the dead end to which women in our country have been led, with the main consequence being low fertility as a result of the unprecedented crisis and destruction that the family in the Wesst is undergoing on the altar of Americanization and a supposed progress. Let us first collectively conduct our cultural self-criticism and then, seeing our own mistakes, let us avoid judging others as a supposedly “sinless civilization.”