Full Cover Girl: How Fundamentalism and Democracy Are Eroding Women's Rights in Iraq

Filmmaker Folke Rydén claims that under Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraqi women could attend school, divorce their husbands, own property, run for office, and work outside the home. Economic sanctions against Iraq over the years served to limit women's access to jobs and education, and after Hussein was overthrown and democracy established, the Shiite majority in Iraq's Parliament eroded women's rights even further. Between 2003 and 2008 Rydén filmed two women on opposite sides of the Iraqi political spectrum: Abir al-Sahlani, an activist trying to establish a secular political party, and Jinan al-Ubaidy, a Shiite Muslim member of Parliament who believed women's rights should be “modified” according to Islamic law. Over the five years covered here, al-Sahlani's bid for political power was defeated; al-Ubaidy gained influence with Parliament leadership; and over 10,000 Iraqi women politicians, journalists, teachers, and students were murdered for defying Islamic law. In interviews, the charismatic burka-clad al-Ubaidy cheerfully asserts that women's bodies should be covered in public and that women have nothing to fear from laws allowing men to beat their wives. Al-Sahlani appears increasingly weary as she fails to rally support for secularism, arms herself in anticipation of violence, and finally leaves Iraq after receiving a death threat. Rydén combines news clips and interviews with government officials (and Paul Bremer, former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority) to show that the U.S., although claiming to support Iraqi women, was ill-informed about Iraqi culture, although the film closes on a hopeful note that over time Iraqi fundamentalists might lose some of their political power. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (M. Puffer-Rothenberg)