Nairabet

Thursday, 12 September 2013

Kurdish men in drag promote feminism in the region


The men argued that the ruling was both sexist and anti-Kurdish, as the man was ordered to wear clothes traditional for Kurdish women.
Last April, images of Kurdish men dressed in drag started making the rounds on Facebook.
The campaign, called Kurd Men for Equality, featured men proudly swathed in the colorful garb traditional among Kurdish women. The subjects -- young, old, moustachioed, bespectacled -- were making a statement that was at once political and feminist, proving that in the Kurdish community, the two often go hand in hand.
"It's a political move against the Iranian regime, and the regime happens to be oppressive, to Kurds and to women -- not just Kurdish women but all women."
The campaign, which received over 17,000 Facebook "likes", and, according to the site, the endorsement of American actress Rosario Dawson, was the brainchild of two male feminists, Masoud Fathi and Dler Kamangar
.
Following a ruling by an Iranian court in the country's Kurdish region of Marivan, Kurdish men started posting pictures of themselves dressed in women's clothing on Facebook in a campaign entitled, Kurd Men for Equality.
Some activists argue that feminism and nationalism go hand-in-hand in Kurd communities, as both are reactions against oppression.

"It seems the Kurdish people are trying really hard to fight for the rights that have been taken from them. I guess women's rights is part of that whole thing," says activist Pedram Penhan, who took part in the campaign.



1 comment:

  1. The real "war on women" is in the Middle East, and on many women from the Middle East, who even live in western countries. Which is why its embarrassing,shameful, and phony seeing white American privleged females, prance about talking about war on women, yet stay silent about what women in the Middle East go through, or when a woman they don't politically agree with, is called vile misogynistic things, or have death and rape threats thrown at her.

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