Iraqi Women’s Gains Set Back by U.S. War

By Sara Flounders, Workers World, 13 March 2003

With opposition to a U.S. war on Iraq exploding around the world, the Bush administration has reached fanciful heights in its promises to rebuild the country after a war and implement sweeping democratic reforms. Women make up half the people. Comparing the status of women in Iraq to the countries in the Gulf region where U.S. military and economic power keeps corrupt, feudal dictatorships in control shows how utterly false are these promises.

In Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and throughout the Gulf states women have no right to participate in any area of public or political life. They have no right to work, drive, vote or control their own funds. They are forbidden to be on the streets without a veil. They cannot travel without being accompanied by a husband, father or brother.

Women have no right to decide who they will marry, nor do they have the right to divorce, even from an abusive husband. They are literally imprisoned in their homes. Education is separate and so unequal that the majority of women in oil-rich Saudi Arabia are still illiterate. This criminal situation confirms that the Pentagon is incapable of implementing any progressive social changes.

In Iraq, however, in every school, hospital or government ministry a visitor meets opinionated, confident, educated young women. This is obvious even after years of continued U.S. bombing and sanctions that have strangled the economy.

Nicholas Kristof, writing in the New York Times of Oct. 3, 2002, admitted to this glaring contrast. In an article entitled Equality of Women: Iraq Puts U.S. Allies to Shame, Kristof began with this comparison: If American ground troops are allowed to storm across the desert from Saudi Arabia into Iraq, American servicewomen will theoretically not be able to drive vehicles as long as they are in Saudi Arabia and will be advised to wear an abaya over their heads. As soon as they cross the border into enemy Iraq, they will feel as if they are entering the free world: They can legally drive, uncover their heads, even call men idiots. Iraqi women routinely boss men and serve in non-combat positions in the army.

Kristof pointed out that at the Basra Maternity and Pediatric Teaching Hosp ital 25 of the 26 students in obstetrics and gynecology are women. Across town, 54 percent of Basra University’s students are female.

OVERTHROW OF FEUDALISM

Iraq was under the grip of the British Empire until the 1950s. Until the stranglehold of the U.S. and British was broken, the vast majority of the population was impoverished and illiterate. The country was underdeveloped because its vast oil reserves were totally in the hands of the big oil corporations. All the wealth from oil sales flowed into Western banks. Only the royal family and a narrow grouping around it benefited.

The democratization of the status of Iraqi women and other social gains began with the 1958 revolution. This social explosion overthrew the corrupt monarchy and feudal landowners whose repressive rule had been kept in place by British and U.S. military power. Until 1958 the social position of women in Iraq was similar to the horrible position of women in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia today.

But revolutionary Iraq didn’t have a moment’s peace. The country went through years of upheaval and several coups as U.S. and British covert operations, sabotage, intrigue and constant military efforts attempted to restore the status quo ante. By 1972, however, the oil had been nationalized and the biggest landowners expropriated. With Iraq’s vast oil resources in the hands of the state, a spectacular social transformation happened within two decades. Many problems rooted in age- old bias and backwardness were resolved. Iraqi women made the greatest social gains of women anywhere in the Arab world.

Education, including university, was free. Students paid no tuition and even received funds to continue their studies This was a powerful incentive, especially in the education of women. It encouraged families to keep their daughters in school and not pull them out for work or an early marriage. At the same time the government guaranteed jobs for women who wanted to work. Women acquiring professional skills knew they would find jobs in their fields. Equal pay for equal work was guaranteed.

Health care was also free and of high quality. Mothers had pre- and post- natal care. Working women were guaranteed six months paid maternity leave and an additional six months at half pay. Subsidized daycare was available at most workplaces. Basic food and housing were subsidized.

U.S. BOMBS DESTROY WOMEN’S GAINS

Regime change means the destruction of all the progressive social programs that Iraq has financed with nationalized oil. The Pentagon occupation plans call for put ting the Iraqi oil industry directly under the administration of the U.S. Army. U.S. occupation of Iraq will be paid for out of this expropriated wealth. Any rebuilding will only be for infrastructure that benefits the extraction of wealth from Iraq.

In the 1991 war the Pentagon directly targeted the civilian infrastructure that had been built up during a 20-year program of investing oil revenue in modernizing the country. U.S. bombs damaged 676 schools. They were the pride of Iraq, their hope for the future. U.S./UN sanctions cut off all access to imported computers, books, school supplies and professional journals, and prevented study abroad at government expense.

Bombs and cruise missiles targeted the water purification and sewage processing plants. The dams, the irrigation network and food-processing plants that had modernized agriculture were repeatedly hit. The electric grid and communications network were destroyed.

Women, who had gained the most, were also the most endangered by the war and sanctions.

The sanctions created wild inflation that shut down the whole economy, brought on massive unemployment, and cut off revenue to the public sector, the largest employer of women.

Workers with government jobs were not laid off. But the salaries of schoolteachers, doctors, social workers, engineers and technicians became almost worthless. Young women, who a few years earlier had enjoyed financial independence with a salary of around $400 a month, suddenly found that their real wages were reduced through inflation to less than $2 a month.

No one can live on this. Whole families pool every penny to survive. Even though the salary is worthless, millions of women continue to work because work means participation in society. Despite massive destruction of the civilian infrastructure and years of sanctions, women still struggle to maintain an active role in society.

In every country in the world the burden of childcare and housekeeping is still borne primarily by women. Now, without running water, with only sporadic electricity and limited food provided by government rations, and with sick, undernourished children, Iraqi women face a double burden in a constantly deteriorating situation.

Today up to 95 percent of pregnant women suffer from anemia. Low weight, premature and sick babies are the result. Over 4,500 children per month die due to malnutrition, diarrhea caused by water-borne illnesses, and other sanctions-related, preventable causes. The public health system is in a state of near total collapse from a lack of basic medicines, supplies and equipment.

In the midst of scarcity, old traditions are more likely to reassert themselves. Families must choose which child to buy books for, which children can be pulled from school to work or beg on the streets so the family can survive. After 12 years of sanctions, more than 35 percent of young girls now drop out before finishing primary school.

THE COST AT HOME

The Pentagon’s war on Iraq will cost over $200 billion. The cost of a long-term occupation is estimated at $1 trillion. Here in the U.S. it is also women and children who will pay for the war. Today over 25 percent of children in the U.S. live in poverty. In New York City over one and a half million people depend on food pantries to eat. Some 45 million people are now without health insurance.

As corporate power recolonizes whole sections of the globe, income in the U.S. steadily declines. Real income has declined every year for the past 20 years for 80 percent of the population.

A U.S. occupation of Iraq would be an enormous setback to the historic gains that women have made both in Iraq and in the U.S. Iraqi women’s past achievements are an example of what is possible when resources are used for human needs. Women of the whole world have the greatest stake in stopping the U.S. war machine.