ABSTRACT
This chapter explores gender policies and gendered violence in Iraq. Expanding the focus beyond women, this chapter discusses political practices and discourses regarding non-normative masculinities in Iraq before and after 2003. The study discusses changes and continuities regarding organized gender-based violence in Iraq during the late Ba’thist and the current post-Saddam period, with an eye toward the role of the state and ruling elites in perpetrating and/or condoning such acts as well as the reception of these events in selected media outlets. My aim is to show the destruction of gender diversity in Iraq in recent years in a broader historical context and to scrutinize the factors underlying such acts.
At the same time, it shows that, despite armed and well-financed attempts to repress diversity, Iraqi society remains multiple and vital in its gendered and sexual practices. Many communities, social spaces, and subcultures with different value systems exist and are not completely isolated from one another. While there is not necessarily widespread endorsement of such diversity, there is evidence to suggest that sexual and gender diversity will continue to be embraced in Iraqi society.
