The New Iraq - With or Without Women?
Women Without Borders, September 2003

In the sea of downtrodden, passive Islamic womanhood, Iraqi women are an uplifting exception. Courageous, educated, self-confident, they could lead their Middle Eastern sisters in a whole new direction. In better days, the University of Baghdad used to graduate women engineers, scientists and doctors by the score, and in secular Iraq their talents were valued in the workplace and in society.

Even in the shambles of post-war Iraq today, street scenes attest to this difference. Remember Afghanistan? Crowds of men partied in the streets to celebrate the downfall of the Taliban, but you never saw a woman, and even now, one and a half years later, the majority still hide fearfully behind their burqas. In Iraq, by contrast, fathers lifted their young daughters onto their shoulders to view the passing American tanks, and bare-headed girls ran through the streets alongside their brothers to catch a glimpse of history. Noble and ignominious, women were participants on every page - a woman museum director wept over the destruction of the treasures, while on the street below, women looters helped their husbands push stolen cars down the street, and around the square, women stood on balconies and watched Saddam's statue fall. They were everywhere - but will they stay everywhere, or will the end of the Baath Party spell their banishment?

Kurdish women not only attained high levels of education, they also built an impressive civil society in their corner of Iraq. They ran television stations, created children's programs and shelters for the homeless and for battered wives. Some fought as peshmergas alongside the men; these included Hero Talabani, wife and comrade of the prominent Kurdish leader.

But where are they now? Look at the meetings, in London, in Nasiriyya, and you will look for women in vain. Will this be a repeat of Algeria, where women fought and died for independence, only to land in the jail of fundamentalism? Will Pentagon politics create a woman-less democracy in Iraq?