Specific histories of girls’ education, women’s organisations, public singing, gender studies and Jineolojî show different approaches to Kurdish women’s rights, rather than one uniform movement.
Girls’ education and Hapsa Khan’s remembered work
The 2022 commemorative publication The Rise of Women credits Hapsa Khan with a girls’ school in Sulaimani in 1926 and describes her and her colleagues visiting homes to encourage enrolment. [1] This retrospective account identifies education as practical organising: families had to be persuaded and pupils recruited. It is evidence of how her work is remembered, rather than a surviving school register. It also provides a more concrete starting point than assuming that every prominent woman in Kurdish history belonged to the same feminist movement.
Leyla Zana: election, imprisonment and international advocacy
Leyla Zana’s election to Turkey’s Parliament in 1991 and Sakharov Prize in 1995 connect women’s political representation with international advocacy. In his 17 December 2002 anniversary address, European Parliament President Pat Cox recalled her election and award, described her work for a peaceful political resolution of the Kurdish issue, and called for her release from prison. [8] The speech documents an intervention at that date. It shows how an elected woman’s case entered international institutions; an award or appeal alone does not establish wider equality or the outcome of a campaign.
Women’s organisations: protection and disagreement
A 2010 study by Nazand Begikhani, Aisha Gill and Gill Hague, with Kawther Ibraheem, documents women’s organisations working on violence in Iraqi Kurdistan and the UK diaspora. Its Iraqi sections describe campaigns, outreach, legal support and shelters, including work by Asuda. They also record disputes about party affiliation, mediation, confidentiality and reaching poorer or rural women. [2] The researchers’ findings show both organised action and criticism within it. These are dated findings about particular organisations and research settings, not a claim that all Kurdish communities or today’s services are identical.
Public voice is not automatically control
Marlene Schäfers’s 2018 study draws on 2011–12 fieldwork with Kurdish women singers, including public performances in Istanbul and Van in 2012. She examines how becoming audible could challenge restrictions while also subjecting performers to new ideological expectations. [3] The distinction matters for feminist history: a concert invitation, media appearance or public platform can expand possibilities without giving women complete control over how their work is heard. Listening to the women’s performances and accounts means asking about those conditions as well as celebrating their visibility.
Building a place for gender studies
In her published account of establishing gender studies at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani, Choman Hardi recalls returning in 2014 and initially organising events, training and courses within English studies. She credits support from Jan Warner and collaboration with Shireen Saib in founding the Center for Gender and Development Studies in 2015. [4] This describes a specific institution-building process during war, displacement and financial difficulty. Academic teaching is one form of work for equality; establishing a centre is not itself evidence that wider social inequality has ended.
Jineolojî as one movement’s knowledge project
The Jineolojî Center’s own history attributes the term’s use to Abdullah Öcalan’s Sociology of Freedom in 2008 and dates its collective development to 2011. It describes discussions, debates and research concerned with women and life. [5] This is the centre’s account of a particular intellectual and organisational project. It should be read alongside other approaches to women’s rights, rather than treated as the origin of every Kurdish feminist initiative. The existence of a programme or council also requires separate evidence from its implementation and effects.
Campaigning through images and everyday work
SEED and Metrography opened For Every Woman at Erbil Citadel Cultural Center on 25 November 2022, as part of the 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence. Their announcement describes eighteen women’s stories and a planned exhibition running to 10 December. [6] It presents women’s work and supportive relationships as part of an equality campaign. This is a documented event, not proof of a region-wide social transformation. Together, these cases make feminist history visible through classrooms, research, services, performance, organised debate and public advocacy.
Sources and further reading
- A Kurdistan for All: The Rise of Women, Baizac, November 2022, printed pp. 24–25: retrospective account of Hapsa Khan’s educational work.
- Nazand Begikhani, Aisha Gill and Gill Hague, with Kawther Ibraheem, final report on honour-based violence in Iraqi Kurdistan and the UK diaspora, November 2010; selected pp. 56–62.
- Marlene Schäfers, It Used to Be Forbidden: Kurdish Women and the Limits of Gaining Voice, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 14/1 (2018), pp. 3–24; opening discussion and fieldwork account.
- Choman Hardi, Gender Studies and the Gender Centers in the Kurdistan region, AUIS: published opening account of the 2014–15 establishment process.
- Jineolojî Center, What is Jineolojî?: the organisation’s account of the 2008 term and collective development beginning in 2011.
- SEED Foundation and Metrography, For Every Woman announcement, November 2022: exhibition opening on 25 November and planned duration.
- Mohammed Sardar / Kushared, Choman Hardi at Mali Wafaee, Erbil, 13 June 2023; Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Pat Cox, address on the fifteenth anniversary of the Sakharov Prize, Strasbourg, 17 December 2002, p. 1; archived European Parliament speech.