FLUX: International Relations Review Double Trouble: Analyzing the Impact of Statelessness on the Status of Kurdish Women Maya Garfinkel Edited by Sophia Perring and Olivia Gumbel ABSTRACT - The struggle of Kurdish women at large has been, as many media outlets suggested, an extraordinary and unique example of women’s status in the Middle East. In contrast to the widespread, surfacelevel narrative of Kurdish women’s empowerment, a complex political, socio-historical background of Kurdish statelessness has intensified women’s empowerment or oppression. This essay will demonstrate how nationalist ideology, autonomous spaces, and violent conflict may provide the conditions for a “double revolution” and/or “double oppression” of stateless Kurdish women through the lens of statelessness. These three features of statelessness intersect with unique features of the stateless Kurdish populations across the Middle East to determine a woman’s status. More specifically, the case of Syrian Kurdistan exemplifies a “double revolution” while Iraqi Kurdistan exemplifies a case of “double oppression” for Kurdish women. 9

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