On ‘sisterhood’: What Iraqi Kurdish women migrants have to say about women and the commonalities they share

Based on a research study this paper is concerned with the migration experiences of Iraqi Kurdish Muslim women. Commonalities among women was one of the main themes emerging from the research data, with much of that data related to what some of the Kurdish women conceptualise as a ‘sisterhood’ of women, suggesting that for at least half of the Kurdish women, experiences of inequality, domestic abuse, and patriarchal oppression provide a significant point of commonality among women.
More complete approaches to women’s experiences of relationships of power do not negate the relationships of power, inequality, and experiences of domestic abuse existing between men and women; such approaches also do not prioritise over these relationships the relationships of oppression that exist between culturally and/or socioeconomically different women. Taking account of commonalities among women through sameness experiences of gender inequalities and patriarchal abuse, and how those commonalities are constructed, offers insight into the potential evolution of transnational feminism.