Kurdish Women: The Conquest of Public Space

In addition to the known struggle of the Kurdish people for greater autonomy, Kurdish society handles since years an interesting alternative battle: the one hold by thousands of women in pursuit of a social change involving greater equality for women and a bigger conquest of public space. This modernization of the role of women is not being easy in such conservative and deeply religious society. The role of Islam, closed familiar environments, a high illiteracy and the consequent lack of job opportunities are some of the challenges still to be overcome by the new Kurdish feminism. But there are also indicators to be optimistic: an increasing school enrollment, massive participation of women in political life, and a first generation or Kurdish women accessing modern professions. This project raises a visual tour along the different realities of what it means being a Kurdish women in Turkey: the few remaining women of Yezidi ethnic in Viransehir; temporary workers in the cotton fields of Urfa; the first generation of children having full access to education in Batman; the activists of Mothers for Peace in Diyarbakir, or the case of Esmeray, a well-known Kurdish transgender in the city of Istanbul. Thus, this documentary work proposes a deep approach to topics like roots, religion, agriculture work, education, forced migration, political participation and the arrival to new kurdish women identities that modernize nowadays the concept of being woman and Kurdish in Turkey.