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Gender and Feminism
Feminist art presentation at a traditional tea house in Kurdistan
Rozhgar Mustafa is not only an artist, but a feminist and a conceptual artist, whose vision of the world is one in which women are accepted as equal human beings. Through her art she conveys important messages about the status of women in…
Houzan Mahmoud in an interview for Conatus News
Benedict Nicholson from Conatus News, is joined by Houzan Mahmoud to discuss Kurdistan, Syria, and Shariah Houzan is a Kurdish women's rights and anti-war activist born in Iraqi Kurdistan. Houzan has led an international campaign against…
What are Masculinities?
By Bakhtiar Rasheed Simone de Beauvoir in a distinguished sentence claims: “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” (P. 295). Based on the same analogy one could also say, “Man is not born masculine, but becomes one” - meaning that,…
Kurdish Diaspora Online: From Imagined Community to Managing Communities
Jowan Mahmod Ph.D. in Media and Communications Online activities among Kurdish diasporas demonstrate that new technology and transnational activities have strong implications for different articulations of identity and belongingness, which…
Mosul And The Plight Of Women
Houzan Mahmoud For the past two years since the taking over of Mosul by ISIS terrorists, people in the region have been anticipating the recapture of Mosul from the Islamic State. To see this city and the entire region cleared from ISIS is…
Kurds and Turks are at the edge of a cliff
Ayla Akat, women’s rights activist, has for many years sought a political solution to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict while defending the rights of the Kurdish minority in Turkey. She has been arrested. Interview. Ayla Akat, lawyer, former…
The Hassar and the Dogs of my Father
Zhiwar Jawhar The Hassar and the Dogs of my Father is a well-known Kurdish novel by Sherzad Hassan, written in 1996 and translated into Persian and Swedish. Its overarching themes are dictatorship and patriarchy, particularly focusing on…
Rusty Razorblades and State of the Art Cameras: in search of human rights ‘for Kurdish Girls?’
Dr. Sandra M. Phelps Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney Rusty Razorblades and State of the Art Cameras: in search of human rights ‘for Kurdish Girls?’ Abstract On December 29th 2008 the Washington Post published an…
Why has the Iranian women’s movement failed?
By Ava Homa Since the 1910-era Constitutional Revolution, women in Iran have struggled to achieve gender equality, to no avail. In the 1930s, women had 14 magazines discussing their rights, and by the 1970s had gained some freedom of…
Why Culture Project?
By Houzan Mahmoud I NEEDED to do this. After many years as an activist, it felt like it was finally the right time to co-found this initiative, a project that has the potential to lift feminist and gender consciousness, to really challenge…
Kurdish Women As a Disciplined Body
By Shara Tahir The main purpose of this article is to figure out the common discourse that continuously claims the freedom of Kurdish women in different geographical areas in Kurdish society. An assumption being made and that has…
How to make sense of feminist art in a culture where women’s voices are absent
By Kani Kamal WHEN I studied art at university in Sulaymania 16 years ago, the course was based on an old fashioned way of thinking. There was a gendered mentality so, for example, in most cases only men could study painting and sculpture,…
The story of Malala: The Girl who stood up for equal right to education
The story of Malala: The Girl who stood up for equal right to education By Lazo Azad IT’S fair to say that the Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban, Malala Yousafzai, has become a global sensation. Shot three times after championing girls’…