It was predictable that Hamas officials and their radicalised international supporters would deny that sexual violence against Israeli women and men was committed on 7 October 2023. But denials from the academic field of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies are more surprising because they appear to violate two of the field’s salient principles: support for women’s sexual autonomy and insistence that women who lodge charges of sexual violence should be believed. Instead, a number of academic feminists have not only rejected Israeli claims, they have also embraced Hamas, along with all the reactionary patriarchal baggage of radical Islam, thereby abandoning their own stated values.

This subversion of academic feminism has been unambiguously apparent in multiple events organised by women’s and gender studies programs across the US since the 7 October attacks. The most recent of these was held on 11 February, when the Gender and Women’s Studies department at the University of California at Berkeley sponsored a webinar panel discussion titled “Feminist and Queer Solidarities with Palestine.” The original abstract for the event read:

Some of the more important accomplishments of feminism include the insistence on “believing women” who come forward with accusations of sexual assault, and the awareness of increased sexual violence during militarized conflicts. Yet these achievements are currently being turned against real feminist concerns in Palestine. This talk will look at how Zionism has weaponized feminism, so as to serve Israel’s genocidal intent, by upholding debunked accusations of systematic Hamas mass assault, while ignoring documented reports of Israeli abuses.

The abstract was taken down after UCB law professor Steven Davidoff Solomon published a critical op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on 3 February. Solomon anticipated that the panelists’ talks would likely “celebrate antisemitic violence” and create “a hostile environment for women” on campus, thereby violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Two days later, UC Berkeley’s chancellor Rich Lyons responded to Solomon in a letter to the Journal:

The optional event that Prof. Solomon referenced hasn’t happened yet. The courts have made clear that the campus administration can’t cancel an event based solely on fears of what might be said. If the event proves to be a venue where odious views contrary to our institutional values are expressed, I will, as I have in the past, respond appropriately.

The event duly went ahead as planned, but when one of the panelists expressed precisely the kind of views that Solomon predicted, Lyons never responded.