Violence against women stems from a system of deep patriarchy that promotes a certain way of being for women.
In the West, it has been well documented that the objectification of women’s bodies and portraying women as sexual objects has led to the dehumanisation of women as equal human beings. This objectification can start from an early age and manifests itself in how girls are brought up to care about their physical appearance, the colours they wear, the toys they play with and the feminine occupations they choose.
In New Zealand, we still have only a small number of women joining male-dominated industries such as engineering or computer science. Things are slowly changing as feminist movements raise awareness about objectification and legislation that can force women into having no say in their lives, such as taking away abortion rights in the United States.
Even if Western states have passed legislation to protect basic rights, cultural norms about how a woman’s body should look are still taking their toll. Belittling women into objects of beauty and youth keeps violence against women — mostly by men known to them — consistently high. A sense of entitlement over women’s lives continues.
Femicide happens in the West by men whom societal norms allow to remain patriarchal and entitled. Membership in misogynistic men’s groups has surged in the past decade, with some channels promoting violence. Some followers have killed women, yet mainstream media rarely exposes this link.
Countries that protect basic women’s rights but do not educate girls and boys about social norms will continue to see alarming rates of violence. Legislation alone has solved only half the problem.
Compare this with modern theocracies in West Asia — specifically my birth country of Iran. For more than four decades, the system has forced women to cover up and controlled every movement, claiming this liberates them from Western objectification. The opposite happened. Women became the centre of male attention and sexual harassment soared.
Add to this laws degrading women to emotional dependants. Iranian women face significant legal disadvantages in areas such as marriage, divorce, inheritance and child custody. Women are unprotected both on the streets and legally. This system, called gender apartheid, signals to men that violence is acceptable since men’s entitlement is written into law.
Three years ago, on September 13, Kurdish Iranian woman Jina (Mahsa) Amini fell into a coma after injuries sustained in the custody of the Morality Police. She died three days later, igniting the women-led Woman Life Freedom revolution in Iran.
Her killing was not isolated — it was just the one that came to the attention of two female journalists who covered her death (subsequently jailed and now released) and whose manager decided to publish the story. No-one knows how many other women have been beaten or killed by the Morality Police or Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps agents, but it is almost certain this was not isolated. State violence is widely documented by Amnesty International and others, and is common in Iran’s prisons.
Apart from state-inflicted violence, women are also killed in honour killings and femicide. Femicide — the intentional killing of women, often by men they know — occurs frequently. Jina’s death opened a new chapter in Iran, organisations documenting femicides for the first time and raising international awareness. Officially, a woman is killed every other day in Iran.
Over 25 days in March 2025, 24 women were killed; in July, 22 women.
If a father kills his daughter, the maximum jail time is 10 years; the mother can forgive him, freeing him entirely, often under threat.
Femicide in Iran stems from laws granting men ownership of women and traditional norms. Women are described as the ‘‘honour’’ of men, and any perceived loss of honour can justify severe punishment or killing. The regime refuses to educate boys about respecting women, as laws institutionalise male dominance.
Yet Iranian women rise from oppression. They excel in male-dominated fields such as engineering and computer science.
Progress is always at the mercy of men. In middle-class families, women may pursue their potential only to a certain degree; in conservative families, chances are near zero — the model the state promotes. Women’s traditional place is at home, raising children, central to the regime’s control: controlling women controls the population.
But women keep fighting. Since the Woman Life Freedom revolution, many refuse the mandatory headscarf and publish videos of singing and dancing publicly. They normalise forbidden acts through persistent resistance. Despite harassment, fines and arrests, they continue excelling academically and demanding freedom from male control.
The regime persists in punishing women through detention, lashes, solitary confinement, white torture, pretend suicides, intimidation and execution. How long can this continue if their struggle is not prioritised?
Women would feel empowered if they knew they were not alone. Ex-theocratic countries, feminist movements and the international community should prioritise women’s rights in Iran and Afghanistan. How many more femicides must happen before women’s rights are treated as urgent globally?
This is the fight of our times.
■ Aida Tavassoli is a former National Council of Women board member and a founding member of the Iranian Solidarity Group Aotearoa New Zealand.
