By: Dr. Abdelaziz Tarekji
Investigative journalist and researcher on international human rights violations
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Women’s rights have never been a matter separate from the general framework of human rights. Since the emergence of legal and ethical thought, they have constituted one of its fundamental pillars. A woman, in her essence, is not an “object of protection” but a rights holder, and her dignity is not granted by any institution or authority, but rather derives from her inherent humanity.
This principle is not exclusive to the modern era. It was affirmed by revealed religions long before it was adopted by international instruments, and later reaffirmed by contemporary legal systems as a peremptory norm that cannot be suspended, restricted, or circumvented.
However, the political and social transformations witnessed over recent decades—particularly in Latin American countries, including Argentina—have produced a troubling phenomenon: the transformation of women’s rights discourse from an ethical-legal system into an ideological instrument. Certain feminist institutions that claim to act in defense of women have contributed to this deviation by monopolizing the definition of rights, marginalizing women who dissent intellectually or socially, and politicizing women’s suffering within partisan or cultural conflicts, in clear contradiction with religious references and international legal obligations.
This article adopts a critical legal approach that compares women’s rights as recognized by revealed religions and international instruments with the actual practices of some feminist institutions, using Argentina as a practical model to illustrate this structural imbalance.
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Women’s Rights in Islam
Islam grounds women’s rights in the principle of universal divine dignity bestowed upon all human beings, without discrimination based on sex or social role. Under Islamic law, a woman is a person with full legal capacity, possessing an independent financial identity, the right to property ownership, education, employment, participation in public life, and the right to freely consent to or refuse marriage. Any form of aggression against her is prohibited and considered a grave injustice.
Islam does not view women as instruments or subordinate entities, but as partners in responsibility and human stewardship. The Islamic concept of justice is based on the preservation of dignity, not on imposing coercive models under the pretext of protection or reform. It rejects intellectual and social coercion and considers the confiscation of a woman’s will a clear violation of the objectives of Islamic law, which are founded upon justice and the removal of harm.
Qur’anic reference: “Indeed, We have honored the children of Adam”
(Qur’an, Surah Al-Isra, 17:70)
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Women’s Rights in Christianity
The Christian vision of women’s rights is based on the principle of full equality in human dignity before God. According to Gospel teachings, a woman is not inferior to a man, but shares the same humanity and derives her dignity from being created in the image of God. Christianity emphasizes love, mercy, and the rejection of injustice, and regards any humiliation or exploitation of women as a deviation from the core of its ethical message.
Christianity also affirms freedom of conscience and rejects coercion in belief or conduct. Accordingly, any institutional practice imposed upon women under the banner of “liberation” or “reconstruction” contradicts the essence of Evangelical teachings, which are grounded in free choice and moral responsibility.
Biblical reference: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them”
(Genesis 1:27)
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Women’s Rights in Judaism
Judaism recognizes women as legal and moral subjects with inherent dignity and rights, and assigns society the responsibility to protect them from injustice and harm. The texts of the Torah emphasize the prohibition of oppressing vulnerable groups, including women, and stress the duty to uphold justice and safeguard human dignity.
Despite the diversity of interpretative schools, the central principle remains unchanged: the prohibition of injustice and the obligation of compassion. Any political or commercial exploitation of women’s causes therefore constitutes a deviation from the religious purpose that places the human being as an end in itself, not a means.
Torah reference: “You shall not oppress the widow or the orphan”
(Exodus 22:22)
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Women’s Rights in International Law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
International human rights law affirms that women’s rights are an indivisible part of the fundamental rights enjoyed by all human beings. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights established the principle of equality in dignity and rights, prohibited discrimination based on sex, and obligated states to protect women from all forms of violence, including institutional and symbolic violence.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) reaffirmed these principles and required states to remove legal and social barriers that prevent women from fully enjoying their rights. However, the Convention does not authorize any entity to monopolize the interpretation of women’s rights or impose a single cultural or ideological model, as the essence of international law is rooted in pluralism and respect for cultural and religious particularities, provided they do not violate human dignity.
International reference: Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
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Women Between Legal Protection and Institutional Deviation: A Legal and Political Reading
This issue represents one of the most serious contemporary challenges facing women’s rights. In several countries, including Argentina, certain feminist institutions have shifted from being legal actors complementary to the role of the state into ideological political actors exercising unelected power, monopolizing women’s representation and claiming exclusive authority to speak on their behalf. This shift has politicized the legal protection system and subordinated women’s rights to partisan or funding agendas rather than anchoring them in constitutional principles and international obligations.
From a legal perspective, this reality constitutes a violation of the principle of state neutrality and an infringement of freedom of opinion and conscience as guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The imposition of a single feminist discourse or the exclusion of women who dissent intellectually or culturally also represents a form of reverse discrimination and contradicts the principle of non-coercion, which is considered a peremptory norm of international law.
In this context, a particularly dangerous deviation emerges in the form of systematic institutional feminist incitement against men as a collective group. This incitement exceeds the bounds of legitimate criticism and extends into generalization and hostility, constituting a clear violation of the principle of equality before the law. International human rights law—particularly Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights—affirms that all persons are equal before the law and are entitled to equal protection without discrimination of any kind, whether based on sex or otherwise.
CEDAW has never endorsed reverse discrimination or collective hate speech; rather, it aimed to eliminate injustice without replacing it with another. Assigning collective responsibility to men as a gender for individual acts or isolated crimes contradicts the most basic principles of criminal justice, which are founded on individual rather than collective responsibility. Such practices undermine the rule of law, as neither generalized hostility nor symbolic punishment may be imposed on an entire group for the actions of an individual. Men and women alike are equal before the law and justice, and rights are not built on hatred, but on fairness and equality.
From a political perspective, this deviation weakens public trust in the women’s rights framework and transforms a matter of justice and equity into a field of polarization and cultural conflict. It also opens the door to the exploitation of women’s suffering as a tool of political pressure or as a means of securing international funding, amounting to the commodification of rights and the transformation of victims into resources.
This pattern of practice constitutes a contemporary form of institutional violence. While it leaves no direct physical traces, it deprives women of their right to free choice and reduces them to a stereotypical image serving the dominant discourse, in clear contradiction with the spirit of international law and the purposes of revealed religions.
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Conclusion
Within the framework of commitment to the principles established by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and national constitutional obligations that enshrine equality and non-discrimination, there emerges a clear need for a critical and responsible review of the role played by non-state actors operating in the field of women’s rights.
Advancing women’s rights requires strict adherence to the human rights system as an integrated and indivisible framework, and the avoidance of practices or discourses that—intentionally or unintentionally—contribute to weakening these rights or undermining their ethical and legal legitimacy.
International legal experience demonstrates that the history of rights does not judge declared intentions, but concrete outcomes, and that any deviation from the principles of human dignity and equality before the law, or any political or ideological instrumentalization of rights, is not recorded in the memory of justice as progress, but as failure carrying legal and moral responsibility.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was founded on the principle of “human rights first,” without division, fragmentation, discrimination, incitement, or politicization—a principle likewise enshrined by modern national constitutions as a supreme foundation of the legal order.
From this perspective, the protection of women cannot be based on producing new forms of symbolic or institutional violence under any label, nor on exclusionary or inciting discourse, but on promoting an inclusive human rights culture that places the human being—woman, man, or child—at the center of equal legal protection. Law does not recognize selective justice, nor does it protect a discourse that replaces one injustice with another.
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Therefore, I state clearly: stop the politicized violence exercised in the name of feminism against women.
