Gendering Reconstruction: Iraqi Women between Dictatorship, Wars, Sanctions and Occupation

The article explores the role of women and changing gender relations in reconstruction processes in Iraq. It will provide a historical background in terms of changing women’s status and gender ideologies & relations during the regime of Saddam Hussein. I will focus particularly on the impacts of the early developmental-modernist discourses of the state to the impacts of war (Iran-Iraq war 1980-88 & Gulf War 1991) as well as comprehensive economic sanctions (1990-2003). The latter involved wider social changes affected women and gender but also society at large, i.e. impoverishment of well-educated middle-class, wide-scale unemployment and economic crises pushing women back home, and a shift towards more conservative values and morals. It is against this backdrop that the impact of the latest war (2003), the occupation and reconstruction attempts need to analysed. In addition to the most immediate effects of the current situation (humanitarian crisis, lack of security, lack of mobility, general exclusion form political process), the article will explore more long- term issues with respect to the need to mainstream gender in reconstruction processes. It will also attempt to provide a brief overview of the emerging Iraqi women’s national and transnational women’s initiatives and organisations