half iraqi half german not only learned arabic as a scholar in cairo before obtaining a doctorate at the university of london where she is currently a professor of gender studies at the school oriental and african studies unfortunately vic would have pointed to several wars and conflicts in the region but the most of the contributions in our book actually focused on the two countries with a long list serious force and conflict in the middle east that   european but also american and british organizations but we also looked of course at the american british military presence in the region now the outcome of these interventions is for the most part not positive with regards to ensuring women's rights and enabling woman's involvement in post conflict reconstruction processes and we actually one of the things that we come up is that we cannot in the context of both iraq and palestine we cannot really speak about post conflict as still very much acute conflict now many many initiatives like the euro mediterranean partnership has been slow to mainstream gender intersect just beyond the economic and social spheres at their most dangerous transnational interventions empower actors and strengthen structures that actually undermine women's empowerment and woman's rights largely due to a security concern four who said you know we are actually the majority of the iraqi population and we want to have a share in the new iraq we want to have forty percent representation in all political bodies including parliament he looked at them  f we don't do quarters which was funny because when it came to actually ethnic and religious representation the way the iraqi governing council was appointed by the americans it was all about a quarter and i say the americans  mean the american government at the time and so but iraqi woman's rights activist were not you know didn't take this as a no as an answer and they kept complaining and there was actually lots of sort of a successful instance of iraqi women activists being involved to making a positive contribution to a political process so what i'm trying to say is that from the very beginning iraqi woman's rights activist who despite the rhetorical woman's liberation knew that women's rights was not going to be presented on them to apply on a platter but that they had to fight for it so these pictures of women demonstrating on the street having said ins campaigning were very frequent in two thousand and three and two thousand and four it became much more difficult from two thousand and five onwards because of the violence  promotion of gender mainstreaming may intensify rather than improved gender inequalities what role can feminist and woman solidarity movements play what i mean here is when president bush was in power and he was talking about women's rights in iraq that created a backlash against women's rights in iraq and the louder now whatever president you have with child women's rights in the middle east the more conservative backlash against women's rights you will have in the middle east or anywhere in the world because of the of the perception that this is imposed from outside it this is an imperialist agenda despite the fact that of course in countries like fifty's earth played a very active for all their been educated they have been in the labor force but when it becomes a point to show you have to bring civilization we have to liberate you have to bring democracy and human rights in a context where you invade a country you have actually a kneejerk reaction against it and that is unfortunate happening now in many countries in the middle east including iraq and palestine but the question then is for those of us who are based in san diego in london anywhere in the world who are concerned with women's rights what can we do do we have to shut up i mean that was what i was trying to explain to you with the group that i belong to act together in london and we were very hazard and hesitant to get involved in the campaign around the constitution because we're worried if we do that being based in london maybe we're actually not helping women in iraq actually will make might make it worse and so we waited d meaning networks that that actually work across borders and nation states in terms of membership in terms of networking communication using the internet as the means  contexts it's sort of people go along with that but i'm a very acutely aware that i'm saying this in a context where you think that i'm totally weird ok but i see so the image that i'm showing you here is of course a image of hillary clinton with an enormous meal the president of the feminist majority which to my mind and many of my friends is an example of what i would call an imperialist hermanus who why argument being that actually not only did neither the invasion of afghanistan nor the invasion of iraq promote or empowered women but it actually did the opposite but also iraqi women's rights activist about the dictatorship of saddam hussein and no one ever paid attention to us we tried to raise awareness about the unfired campaign the gassing of the kurds in the eighty's of human rights abuses by saddam hussein and no one ever listened to up to funded several organizations and gave them money to speak about the terrible regime the timing was very odd so now of gender race class nationality and other markers of inequality and injustice and this is one example of a group that exists all over the world it's big in the u s as in europe it actually started in israel by a group of i should mention the issue of honor killings you know other killings or so called honor killings refer to the killings of women mainly who are accused of being involved in the listed relationships sexual relationships are outside of marriage ok nuanced talk and some people went away with the only thing the only message they got away from the whole talk which is iraqi fathers kill their daughters ok and mentioned one example so my dilemma then is what is more important is important to speak about the abuse of women's rights or is it more important to fight against the racism in islam or for bia it's a difficult one it's a very difficult one and those of us who are working in the context explain in a moment on the one hand they asked for activist may provide important bridges between activist in the north and those in the south they might be able to mobilize the necessary resources and send back to their countries of social welfare and development projects within their country of origin maybe percy as an attempt to capitalize on the diasporic positions to create new hierarchies of power within their countries of origin and this happened both in tucson three i mean i know you know it interviewed here woman from san diego who after two thousand and three said ok we're going back now and we're going to show we're going to help to rebuild the country lots of goodwill lots of good intentions but to build democracy how to engage in women's rights activists and there are a few who managed to stay and to gain respect and credibility but man it actually left after a few years because they didn't feel welcome and they told me oh they just don't i don't like their mentality and they're did not appreciate me but when i spoke to iraqi woman who had always the inside they were complaining about these women from outside who thought that they knew it all so this is one another complication work is sort of the idea that you can explain things the way by reference to iraqi culture islamic culture middle east culture and what i've been trying to do especially in my history is to show that it's not so much that rather than religion or culture it's changing political and economic conditions that have actually changed woman situation and when i show this picture i know that sort of  people who don't know much about iraq say oh you know this is very traditional very they're going back but when i show it actually to iraqis especially all the iraqis they say this is not iraq this never existed in iraq before this which is by the way not very common but this is a post two thousand and three phenomenon it never existed in iraq before and this are women who are linked to the shia islam is a might have heard of the sudras movement and it's a it's a political islamic extremist movement and this kind of dress code has never existed in iraq before so this is actually a very modern phenomen invasion phenomena and same here again you know in iraq a tradition traditionally iraqi women know very what is called in the bayou which is sort of a black cloth that was sort of w palestinian woman very much used motherhood as a way to peacefully resist occupation i mean they're very much involved in nonviolent activism but let me come to a conclusion here so that you have some time to ask me some questions as well in the context of recent firmness scholarship on palestine and iraq is that we need that we need to pay careful attention to the specific historical context and current constellation of political and social forces when we analyze a particular groups linked to the government militias linked to the government and those groups actually fighting the government and their patient are very similar in the way they're treated women i mean these are mainly sort of extremist islamist groups linked to the government or those fighting when they move into a neighborhood they try to impose certain dress code on women there have been attacks on women who are alone and two thousand seven hundred thirty three women were killed for not being islamic enough it had nothing to do with islam but it was different groups fighting for territory and using women's bodies and so incorporate women fighters and address issues of gender equality experience demonstrates that tensions exist between national liberation and women's liberation women's involvement in struggle may simply expand notions of wom oppression the abuse of riots and gender specific violence on the one hand and the abuse of human and so riots and military interventions in the name of the so called war on terror on the other hand because not credibly and coherent torture for example i would argue is the feminist issue whether it takes place in inherent within these however as i've indicated earlier i also feel uncomfortable with liberal notions of multiculturalism on the one hand and on to imperialist glorification of military resistance on the other hand