Actually, to continue the metaphor, I'd say that the war there is actually an occupation. Women have been colonized and subjugated and are now living as an enslaved people.
I hasten to say that "the Middle East" is far too broad a label; this applies to certain countries, or more accurately certain societies / cultural groups, only.
The war itself is being waged in places where women had achieved at least some of the attributes of a free people. Iraq is an example of that: horrific as the Saddam Hussein years were in many ways, women were free of many of the constraints that typically apply to second-class citizens and enjoyed a high degree of equal rights. War is now being waged on them to subjugate them, and women have lost many battles, as girls are kept out of school and women out of the labour market.
It is being waged in the west too, although noticeably and formally only in the US, really. (But it is worth mentioning rear guard actions by the RC church against divorce and abortion rights in Latin America, for instance, and things like Poland's assault on reproductive rights after its regime change.)
Women were approaching the status of a free people; their insurgency against the occupation they had lived under was seen to be succeeding and had to be stopped.
The repression has been stepped up. Militias operating on behalf of the regime, just like the militias that operate on behalf of right-wing regimes in Latin America, are being emboldened: "men's rights" activists step up their attacks on women and women's rights every day. Religion is drafted in the service of the occupying power, just as European colonial powers used religion in their campaigns to conquer the Americas and the rest of the world, and secure adherence to their imperialist aims among their home populations. And there are always the collaborators among the victim population ... and the members of the dominant group who don't say or do anything because nobody has come for them yet ...
Okay, that was fun.
The fact is that wars and occupations come in many colours. When the British colonized the upper half of North America, they didn't attempt to exterminate the indigenous population as was done in the lower half; they made treaties and granted rights and protections. The end result hasn't been much different: a people living under occupation, as second-class citizens denied many of the benefits of membership in the society they are nominally a part of.
No analogy is perfect ...
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