content: I think you're pretty close on the origin of this discrepancy. I think it mainly has to do with the fact that fighting Islamic treatment of women contradicts a certain set of values modern feminists have. The current wave of feminism was born on liberal arts campuses, where the concept of colonialism has been thoroughly stigmatized as a form of international cultural oppression. Of course, colonialism in the traditional sense is definitely at odds with modern ethics, but these students took the message way too far and transformed it into a mantra where any kind of cultural interference must be stopped. This means that to criticize the cultural treatment of women in the Middle-East is a form of neo-colonialsm and cultural oppression. TL;DR Feminists oppose mistreatment of women, but oppose challenging other cultures more.