Conclusions on Gendered Life
This series will give an in-depth look at women's security in the Kurdish Region of Iraq (KRI). Gender politics and violence have long been hot topics in international discourse. The emphasis the UN and western democracies place on gender equality has led to extensive research on women's lived experiences. The Middle East, in particular, has found itself under the microscope. Trigger Warning: This series contains a discussion of domestic violence, sexual violence, murder, and modern slavery.
The series is broken into five parts; an introduction to the area and issues, democratization and gender security, independence movements and gender representation, the ISIS occupation and gender oppression, and conclusions on gendered life in the KRI.
Post-2003 political developments in the KRI have had a wide-ranging impact on the Kurdish experience. The gendered effects of both democratization and independence movements have, it has been argued, impacted the political and security situation of Kurdish women.
Democratization has allowed the development of the women's rights social movement, which has successfully campaigned to protect women's security in the KRI. This experience is vastly different from other groups and regions which accept the conservative political changes. However, the protection of women has not fully succeeded, and the impact of patriarchal culture has reduced the effectiveness of legislative protections.
Patriarchal culture also has a critical role in women's political representation and the extent to which this is seen as legitimate. While useful in the eyes of liberal feminists, quotas, and enforced political representation limit women's organic ability to progress their rights. Limits are also evident in the political process's internal dynamics, which, while gendered and patriarchal, rely on financial and social power as a gatekeeper to women's involvement.
The ISIS occupation provides a broader view of gendered security and politics in the KRI in its deprivation of progressive policies and views developed since 2003. The exclusively gender-based violence of ISIS, which borders on femicide, enforces that women hold a precarious position in society. Women's rights are so easily affected, and the tendencies of patriarchal groups cannot be dismissed.
Women are more at risk than any other group in the KRI, and developments since 2003, while intimating progress, continue to be criticized as superficial due to the patriarchal views surrounding the Kurdish political and security situations.
I would like to dedicate this series to Dr Fiona McCallum-Guiney at the University of St Andrews without whom this blog would not exist. Thank you for your careful guidance and encouragement.