Iraqi Rural Women’s Participation in Domestic Decision-Making

Abstract

This paper proposes to focus on the area of domestic decision-making which is believed to reveal some of the salient shifts encountered in the Iraqi rural family. Notwithstanding the vast array of problems to be anticipated here, I suggest to confine my inquiry to the contextual processes and trends re-defining and re-organizing feminist autonomy. In particular, my endeavour will be guided by three main considerations involving: 1. Iraqi women’s rising influence on structural checks and balances. 2. The normative implications associated with feminist expanding roles. 3. The communicative and behavioural adjustments discernible in male-female interaction. We may correctly assume that the processes affecting women’s social life entail definite equilibrium of old and new forces. Moreover, the consequent compromise between spouses has been facilitated by mutual cognizance of the new realities. In many cases, women are expected to contribute to their family welfare through their gainful jobs. This trend is gaining momentum in view of the rapidly increasing costs of living. Urbanization in this specific context has cancelled many of the conditions exempting women from the task of family support. The emerging situation is largely dominated by spouses’ growing sense of realism. Viewed in this perspective, decision-making seems quite promising to unravel some of the vague complexities confroned in Iraqi urbanization.