Women And Gender In Iraq

Highlighting Iraqi women's voices, this is an examination of women, gender and feminisms in Iraq in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion.

Eighteen months after Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, hundreds of thousands of the country’s women participated in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) in a variety of capacities. Iran was divided into women of conservative religious backgrounds who supported the revolution and accepted some of the theocratic regime’s depictions of gender roles, and liberal women more active in civil society before the revolution who challenged the state’s male-dominated gender bias. However, both groups were integral to the war effort, serving as journalists, paramedics, combatants, intelligence officers, medical instructors, and propagandists. Behind the frontlines, women were drivers, surgeons, fundraisers, and community organizers. The war provided women of all social classes the opportunity to assert their role in society, and in doing so, they refused to be marginalized. Despite their significant contributions, women are largely absent from studies on the war. Drawing upon primary sources such as memoirs, wills, interviews, print media coverage, and oral histories, Farzaneh chronicles in copious detail women’s participation on the battlefield, in the household, and everywhere in between.

Since the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, Iraq has seen an explosion of violence and intimidation against women. However, as al-Jawaheri demonstrates in this original and important book, this development should not have taken people by surprise. The deterioriation of gender relations was in fact an overlooked by-product of a decade of international sanctions. Interviewing women of all different ages and backgrounds, al-Jawaheri examines the impact of the UN economic sanctions on family relations, gender violence, domestic responsibilities and employment practices. She shows that by restricting women's ability to participate in education and in the labour force, sanctions reinforced conservative gender roles. She shows how the 2003 war and upsurge in sectarianism intensified this problem, and assesses the future prospects for women's rights in Iraq.

The war in Iraq has put the condition of Iraqi women firmly on the global agenda. For years, their lives have been framed by state oppression, economic sanctions and three wars. Now they must play a seminal role in reshaping their country's future for the twenty-first century. Nadje Al-Ali challenges the myths and misconceptions which have dominated debates about Iraqi women, bringing a much needed gender perspective to bear on the central political issue of our time. Based on life stories and oral histories of Iraqi women, she traces the history of Iraq from post-colonial independence, to the emergence of a women's movement in the 1950s, Saddam Hussein's early policy of state feminism to the turn towards greater social conservatism triggered by war and sanctions. Yet, the book also shows that, far from being passive victims, Iraqi women have been, and continue to be, key social and political actors. Following the invasion, Al-Ali analyses the impact of occupation and Islamist movements on women's lives and argues that US-led calls for liberation has led to a greater backlash against Iraqi women.

This book examines violence against women in the name of honor in Iraqi Kurdistan, taking an intersectional perspective. It reveals the links between destructive, state-sanctioned honor discourse and notions of manhood as they are shaped by a resistance culture dedicated to the struggle against ethnic oppression.

Noga Efrati outlines the first social and political history of women in Iraq during the periods of British occupation and the British-backed Hashimite monarchy (1917–1958). She traces the harsh and long-lasting implications of British state building on Iraqi women, particularly their legal and political enshrinement as second-class citizens, and the struggle by women's rights activists to counter this precedent. Efrati concludes with a discussion of post-Saddam Iraq and the women's associations now claiming their place in government. Finding common threads between these two generations of women, Efrati underscores the organic roots of the current fight for gender equality shaped by a memory of oppression under the monarchy. Efrati revisits the British strategy of efficient rule, largely adopted by the Iraqi government they erected and the consequent gender policy that emerged. The attempt to control Iraq through "authentic leaders"—giving them legal and political powers—marginalized the interests of women and virtually sacrificed their well-being altogether. Iraqi women refused to resign themselves to this fate. From the state's early days, they drew attention to the biases of the Tribal Criminal and Civil Disputes Regulation (TCCDR) and the absence of state intervention in matters of personal status and resisted women's disenfranchisement. Following the coup of 1958, their criticism helped precipitate the dissolution of the TCCDR and the ratification of the Personal Status Law. A new government gender discourse shaped by these past battles arose, yet the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, rather than helping cement women's rights into law, reinstated the British approach. Pressured to secure order and reestablish a pro-Western Iraq, the Americans increasingly turned to the country's "authentic leaders" to maintain control while continuing to marginalize women. Efrati considers Iraqi women's efforts to preserve the progress they have made, utterly defeating the notion that they have been passive witnesses to history.

As the post-invasion reconstruction of Iraq has unfolded, the potential for Iraqi women to participate actively and visibly in the country's political structure has been one of its most notable results. The 2005 Constitution required that no less than 25% of seats in the Iraqi Parliament be filled by women. Yet despite subsequent parliamentary statistics suggesting great strides for female political participation, there has been a resounding silence on the wider implications of this quota for women in Iraqi political life. This book is the first full-length study of women's political representation in Iraq. Based on interviews with politicians and substantial media analysis, Huda Al-Tamimi outlines the political, sectarian and cultural constraints facing female Members of Parliament, and the ways in which individual women and women's organizations are actively challenging barriers to their political influence. The book is a vital contribution to discussions concerning the success and limitations of gender quotas in the Middle East. It also offers new and critical perspectives on the evolution of Iraqi politics, a subject that remains of high priority for a region and international community interested in the nation's reconstruction.

"There is something to learn, literally, on every page here."--Cynthia Enloe, from the foreword "This is a fluent and highly informed account of the women of Iraq during a time of ever increasing political turmoil, economic disaster and foreign invasion. It gives a fascinating insight into the way Iraqi society really works and is far superior in quality to most of what has been written about Iraq in war and peace."--Patrick Cockburn, author of Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq