Feminism is rather unappealing these days. Most young women avoid the word altogether, given the unfortunate connotations with ‘all men are sexist scum’ campaigns, which have successfully hijacked the movement in recent years.

Western feminism is on its last legs and is in desperate need of a cause. It’s tried to reinvent itself in various ways; with the tampon tax, the wage gap, the definition of ‘harassment’ (now incomprehensible), Germaine Greer on Q&A (where she bemoaned everything about a woman’s life and helpfully suggested Julie Bishop go topless); all of which have come off as uninspiring nonsense that is unnecessarily exaggerated. In each of these displays of Sisterhood solidarity, most of the sisters have failed to get on board. Deep down, we just don’t feel mad as hell anymore, because we’re too busy getting ahead in a society that allows us to do so. In fact, now the big winner is to be an ‘anti-feminist’, i.e. being so empowered that you no longer need the feminist movement at all. I personally felt great pleasure in rejecting the free sanitary items that were being handed out to protest the tampon tax. It’s the best way of saying, ‘I appreciate the existing equality I live under, and I’m jolly busy trying to exploit it, if you could please step aside and stop whinging.’

The battle for women’s equality has been won here. Real feminist ideology – the idea that men and women should have the same rights and opportunities on the grounds they are created equal – has been taken for granted by most women, abused for pettiness by some, and been allowed to decline to a conflict-inducing word. Yet, while the femi-Nazis squabble and the anti-feminists ignore them, the need for feminism has become greater than ever before.

In December, a 21 year old Yazidi woman, Nadia Murad Basee Taha, testified in front of the UN Security Council about the sexual enslavement she experienced under Isis. During August 2014, Isis fighters came to her northern Iraq village. In an interview with Time magazine, she gives a shocking account of how her brothers were murdered, but young, attractive women like Nadia were taken as spoils of war. Their photographs were posted on a wall in Mosul, so fighters could trade women amongst themselves. Nadia was eventually taken by an Isis fighter, who had a wife and family of his own, but kept Nadia trapped in helpless sexual slavery; forced to dress up and wear make-up. After a failed attempt at escape, her captor put her in a room with six Isis militants. ‘They continued to commit crimes to my body until I became unconscious,’ she says.

Nadia eventually did escape in November 2014. Her descriptions of those desperate women, willing to do anything to be spared the rape and enslavement under Isis fighters, are barely readable. Many commit suicide. In her speech to the Security Council, Nadia implored them to recognise the actions of Isis against the Yazidis as genocide and said ‘Rape was used to destroy women and guarantee these women could never lead a normal life again.’ There can be no doubt that Isis is actively using rape as a weapon of war.

Determination to oppress and control women is a signature move of terrorist organisations. The Taliban demonstrated this when it shot Malala Yousafzai at point blank range, an advocate for girls’ education, in Pakistan. Malala’s belief in empowering girls is unwavering, as is her father’s, Ziauddin Yousafzai. In a TED talk, Ziauddin spoke about the danger of ‘Talibanization, a phenomenon that involves the complete negation of women participation in all political, economical and social activities.’

He also described how, in patriarchal and tribal societies, a girl is expected to be obedient and accept the decisions made for her (even marital ones). However, his school welcomed female attendance, and taught the girls to unlearn the lesson of obedience, allowing them to develop their own identities. In regards to his role in Malala’s brave journey, he merely says ‘Don’t ask me what I did. Ask me what I didn’t do. I did not clip her wings.’

The idea that women should have equal rights and opportunities is surely a feminist ideal worth advocating. In the current international climate, the greatest threat to our security doubles as the greatest threat to the rights of women. Yet, while women such as Nadia tell their stories in the hope of eradicating Isis, and women like Malala continue to fight for education in the face of the Taliban, feminists in western countries have been woefully quiet. Of course, they’ve been distracted. Remember, we live in a place where a minister has lost his job because he kissed a staffer on the cheek. We live in a place where there are ‘safe spaces’ for women on university campuses – no such safe spaces for the Yazidi women.

No matter how out of control things get, there is a reluctance by our feminists to become outraged on behalf of women enslaved by terrorists. There’s similar reluctance to challenge the patriarchal societies that impose limitations on women. After Sweden’s feminist foreign minister spoke out against the shameful treatment of women in Saudi Arabia, she was met with – as Nick Cohen observed in these pages – ‘an embarrassed and hugely revealing silence’ despite campaigning ‘for the rights of women suffering under a brutally misogynistic clerical culture’. What a contrast to Malala and her father, who have shown that the norms of patriarchy can be successfully challenged, if done so boldly.

As for terrorist organisations, surely the suffering of those women should mean feminists are screaming for Isis’s eradication; through columns, campaigns, TV talk shows and social media. Isis is waging its war on many fronts, but it’s determination to slowly obliterate the women they call slaves is perhaps the most frightening and shocking front of all. The feminism movement loves to talk about rights and fighting and liberation and the Sisterhood. They love to whinge about how we aren’t yet equal and still oppressed by The Man (literally). They can continue to move further into irrelevance, or can take a clear stand against this desperate cause – a real war on women – and make us proud to be feminists again. Come on, feminists. You’ve been struggling for a purpose for decades. Isn’t feminism all about women seizing opportunities? Well, seize it!