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By Yad Abdulqader
Women in Kurdistan face a predicament. On one hand, unprecedented social and economic transformations—urbanization, globalization, and mass communication—have granted women greater visibility and participation in public life. On the other hand, deeply entrenched patriarchal norms, legal discrimination, honor-based restrictions, and systemic exploitation persists and punishes women for their increased visibility. These dual realities force women to navigate a contested space where progress and repression coexist. As this essay argues, Kurdish women live precariously between liberation and constraint, as the forces of tradition and modernity continue to shape their experiences.
Modernity in Kurdistan
Today, Kurdish women (and men) engage in activities that were unimaginable three decades ago. Beyond joining the growing “going-out” culture—frequenting malls, cafés, and shopping districts—they participate in hiking, overnight camping, cultural festivals, all of which involve open interaction between genders. Even more striking is the emergence of nightlife and entertainment industries, where young women attend Western-style parties, raves, and club scenes, often alongside expatriates and foreign workers. Such environments offer a degree of personal autonomy previously unthinkable, though access remains heavily class-dependent—a point explored later.
While these spaces have enabled women’s greater participation in public life, they often reproduce traditional hierarchies in modern guises. In Kurdistan, women’s visibility is celebrated as a marker of modernity—until it is deemed “too bold.” The same cafés symbolizing progress become sites of surveillance, where a woman’s laughter or her clothing can ignite moral panics. This duality suggests that public life grants agency to women, but only within limits enforced by patriarchal structures.
Economic participation has also expanded. While women have historically worked in public-sector roles like teaching, nursing, and government bureaucracy, many are now entering private industries such as marketing, advertising, the service industries, and international organizations. These economic opportunities, which often pay better, provide financial independence from male family members and hence an escape from their control and traditional gender roles. Sexuality, too, has transformed. While marriage was once the sole institution for initiating sexual relationships, urbanization and the oversupply of apartments in major cities have created private spaces away from the watchful eyes of family and relatives, contributing to the emergence of new forms of sexuality. These new private spaces, coupled with expanded education and economic hardships – which have both led more women to enter the workforce – have provided both women and men with a newfound individualism that was previously unheard of. With such independence and an abundance of private spaces, starting a sexual life outside marriage has become more accessible than ever before. Simultaneously, a new discourse around sexuality has emerged, with social media, pop culture, and beauty industries promoting Western beauty ideals and sexualized self-presentation. Cosmetic surgery advertisements for nose jobs, breast augmentations, and lip enhancements flood Kurdish social media, reinforcing a discourse that sees the body as a sexual instrument. These transformations have collectively reshaped what it means to be a woman in Kurdistan today.
This newfound visibility has also introduced a contentious social figure: the Kurdish “influencer” or model. These women—often criticized as symbols of consumerism, sexual commodification, or political corruption—flaunt liberal, extravagant lifestyles on social media, attracting both admiration and condemnation. Their defiance of patriarchal norms is undeniable: where women once hesitated to post personal photos online, many now dominate platforms like TikTok and Instagram, livestreaming their lives or discussing taboo topics. Yet their prominence is double-edged. While they inspire younger women to claim digital space, they also become the focus for moral outrage, accused of undermining “traditional values” or owing their success to powerful male patrons and political figures. While some Kurdish women influencers are seen as sign of progress, their independence is often questioned. They aren’t always rejected as ‘immoral,’ but they are only accepted if they follow some traditional male-dominated rules. The hypocrisy lies in the conditional support: their visibility is praised when it aligns with nationalist narratives (e.g., promoting Kurdish culture), but is scrutinized when it challenges deeper power structures (e.g., rejecting marriage, critiquing male authority). This isn’t just about rejecting progressive women—it’s a calculated compromise. Society accepts a ‘safe’ kind of modern thinking, praising those who play by the rules while punishing those who truly challenge the status quo. This hypocrisy extends to politics too. The Kurdish ruling parties pass gender-friendly laws to distance themselves from the “messy” and “backward” Iraq and to impress Western allies to secure continued support for the region—while maintaining authoritarian, tribal, and deeply patriarchal rule. The laws exist on paper, but without meaningful enforcement, they’re just propaganda.
Money Buys Modernity: How Class Controls Who Gets to Be ‘Progressive’
But the new public spheres are not just constrained by patriarchy—they’re also restricted by class. Access to Kurdistan’s most exclusive spaces requires both wealth and cultural capital – a double barrier that makes participation impossible for most. While shopping malls and cafés are accessible to everyone, other spaces like raves, clubs, or independent living remain restricted to an elite few: NGO workers, international employees, Westernized youth from wealthy families, and those fluent in the aesthetics of global privilege.
The system operates through carefully designed exclusion. Consider the entry process for a rave at Dukan Lake: attendees had to complete an online survey (in English) in advance, which required details about their jobs and links to their social media accounts. The organizers would then review these accounts to ensure applicants meet their criteria: a Westernized lifestyle, a non-religious or open appearance, and a perceived low risk of causing disruption at the event. This means a young government employee might afford the rave’s $30 ticket with careful saving, but without the ‘right’ job, the ‘right’ posts, or the right connections, they remain outside the gates. The price of admission isn’t just money–it’s the performance of an identity that distances the privileged from their ‘backward’ compatriots. Here lies the hypocrisy of Kurdistan’s modernity—consumer goods like lattes are within reach, but other “liberties” is reserved for an exclusive few.
Independent living shows this contradiction most starkly. While legal restrictions prohibit unmarried individuals from renting apartments in their registered cities, the wealthy circumvent these rules through wasta (connections) or by leasing luxury units designed for the political elite. For most, financial struggles worsen legal barriers: with average monthly income at IQD 235,000 ($160), even a modest studio rent exceeds reasonable affordability. True independence thus becomes a luxury, one only accessible to those with wealthy families.
In the region’s consumer culture, emancipation is often sold as a lifestyle—buying trendy clothes, attending concerts, travelling, or crafting a feminist persona online. But this version of ‘freedom’ is only available to those with money, masking how class shapes who gets to participate. Even feminist movements reproduce these class divides: while elite circles often prioritize issues like polygyny (something only wealthy men can afford), working-class women organizing for basic economic rights—such as timely salary payments and economic equality—are often sidelined in mainstream feminist debates. For example, since 2015, the government has withheld more than 20 months of salaries from public-sector employees—yet this systemic economic violence against workers, with its disproportionate impact on women, remains conspicuously absent from feminist discourse. However, this doesn’t mean cultural activism is worthless, but it highlights how feminism’s priorities can reflect class bias.
Ultimately, money doesn’t just decide who gets to be ‘modern’—it shapes what ‘freedom’ even means. Unless change includes everyone, not just the rich, then Kurdistan’s progress will stay out of reach for most people.
The Rise of Boldness, Not Freedom
While women have gained visibility and agency in public life, they have also become increasingly vulnerable to violence. Reports of femicide and gender-based violence have surged in recent years, raising the question: Is this a price women have to pay for freedom?
Here, a distinction must be made between freedom and boldness. If freedom means the ability to act without fear of harm, then the rising violence against women suggests that true freedom is elusive. Women are not necessarily freer—they are simply acting more boldly in a society that still punishes female assertiveness.
But this rise of boldness does not resonate well with everyone. When violence occurs—whether physical or social,—the burden of blame often falls on women. A woman’s presence in the public sphere is frequently cited as justification for her victimization, reinforcing the very patriarchal structures these spaces ostensibly challenge. For example, when 18-year-old blogger Noor al-Dulaimi was brutally choked to death and her body later set on fire by a man in a hotel room in Erbil, the reaction on social media was rife with victim-blaming. “Why did this man do this?’ was overshadowed by ‘What was she doing in that hotel?”. Indeed, her presence in the hotel was seen as more problematic than the murder itself.
Indeed, the increase in violence is evidence of an ongoing power struggle—one where patriarchal systems weaponize control when traditional male authority is challenged. As women claim public space, men who derive status from dominance (whether as breadwinners, moral guardians, or sexual arbiters) perceive their privilege as threatened. Violence becomes a tool to enforce boundaries: a woman’s presence in a hotel or her social media persona is seen as ‘provocation’ precisely because these actions defy the gendered order that once went unchallenged. The violence is the system’s recalibration, asserting that women’s autonomy must remain negotiable. Indeed, the persistence of honor-based killings, harassment, and legal discrimination demonstrates that the patriarchal system has not crumbled—it has merely adapted, shifting its methods of control in response to women’s increased courage.
And men are responding to the emancipation of women in different ways. While some are becoming more conservative, others are supportive. However, many merely adopt liberal rhetoric, seemingly embracing women’s boldness, though in reality this acceptance is often superficial and short-lived. Numerous accounts reveal a troubling pattern: after marriage, many gradually retract their partners’ freedoms, leveraging the social stigma attached to divorce to pressure wives into submission. This pattern could partially explain the rise in divorce rates as women increasingly reject these constraints.
This dynamic reveals a dark truth: even men who perform modernity often revert to traditional control when challenged, suggesting that patriarchal structures endure not through brute force alone but through systemic coercion.
A Precarious Balance
The condition of women in Kurdistan is neither one of pure oppression nor of full liberation. Instead, it is a precarious balancing act, where progress is constantly met with resistance. The expansion of economic opportunities, social possibilities, and shifting sexual norms coexist with persistent legal barriers, patriarchal backlash, and class-based exclusion.
Far from being a linear trajectory toward liberation, the situation of Kurdish women is better understood as a contested space where modernity and tradition collide. Women’s increasing agency is not a guarantee of freedom but a test of resilience—one in which they must continuously negotiate and fight for their rights and safety. The tragic case of Noor al-Dulaimi underscores this reality: even as women claim new spaces, they are met with violence and blame, revealing the fragility of their gains. True liberation requires not only access to public life, but also systemic protection from the patriarchal forces that seek to undermine it.
Image: Larin Aram, ‘Distorted Body’, mixed media, the basement of Amna Suraka, Sulaymaniyah, 2021.