ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses experiences of Kurdish women and their increasing politicisation in relation to both anti-Kurdish and Kurdish nationalisms. As women and as members of a nation without a state, Kurdish women have faced double discrimination, gender-based and ethnicity-based, in the countries they live in. When Kurdish women and men speak of marriage, they describe it as a transaction between families who "give" or "take" a girl, reflecting both corporate patrilineal identity and perceived passivity of women in the choice of their marriage partner. In an article on female Kurdish leaders, van Bruinessen describes reports from as early as the 17th century, of women acting as heads of tribes. The new Turkish Republic, did not support women's movements; rather, there were top-down reforms to emancipate women as symbols of a "modern" republic. In Iraq, Kurdish women have experienced decades of violence. As women, Kurdish women are first of all oppressed by legislation in wider Iran that discriminates against women systematically.
