Introduction
Founding moments or landmark events that break ties with an ancien regime and lay the foundations for the establishment of modern states are not gender-neutral. Indeed, moments of constitution-making, which are considered ultimate founding moments, have spurred feminist activism and scholarly writing, as women and women's issues have been largely absent.
The study of constitutions from a gender perspective has uncovered the different impact these documents had on men and women, has revealed successes as well as failures of women's participation in constitution-making and has documented the process of constitutionalising women’s equality around the world.1 But can a gender perspective actually bring to light founding moments?Iraq's constitutional past had received little attention in academic literature until the US-led invasion in 2003 and the subsequent efforts at drafting a new constitution for the country. But even then, researchers were inclined to treat Iraq's past constitutional developments in a cursory fashion, as a prologue to more elaborate discussions of the post-2003 drafting process. Many tended to dismiss the importance of constitutional developments occurring between 1925, when the British-backed Constitution was introduced, and 2004, when the American- backed Transitional Administrative Law was promulgated.2 The interim period
* I wish to thank the Gerda Henkel Foundation for the generous grant that made the research for this chapter possible.
1Helen Irving (ed), Constitutions and Gender (Edward Elgar, 2017); Ruth Rubio Marin and Helen Irving (eds), Women as Constitution-Makers: Case Studies from the New Democratic Era (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
2 See, eg, Andrew Arato, Constitution Making under Occupation: The Politics of Imposed Revolution in Iraq (New York, Columbia University Press, 2009); Haider Ala Hamoudi, Negotiating in Civil Conflict: Constitutional Construction and Imperfect Bargaining in Iraq (University of Chicago Press, 2013); Jonathan Morrow, ‘Deconstituting Mesopotamia: Cutting a Deal on the Regionalization ofIraq' in Laurel E. Miller and Louis Aucoin (eds), Framing the State in Times of Transition: Case Studies in between the 1958 ousting of the Hashemite monarchy and 2003 was depicted for example, as ‘forty-five years of tinkering with successive constitutions’ that ‘had thoroughly undermined any commitment to constitutionalism or the rule of law’.3 At first glance, then, the period between 1925 and 2004 would not appear to be fertile ground when seeking founding moments.
However, in my study of women’s history in Iraq, I encountered formative moments that deserve more careful consideration.4 True, women’s history often exhibits its own timeline, periodisation, patterns of continuity and defining moments, but this chapter will argue that a gender perspective undermines the prevailing notion of the period between 1925 and 2004 as a constitutional void. It is my contention that researchers have thus far underappreciated that the struggles of womens rights activists during the Hashemite period (1921-58) were conducted against constraints placed on women by the 1925 Constitution. Following activists’ efforts at gaining suffrage and improving women’s standing in the realm of personal status will offer particular insight into this. Only when we understand how the 1925 Constitution constructed female citizens of the new Iraqi state can we appreciate the significance of legislation and actions affecting women that were inspired by the constitutional replacement in 1958. Moreover, I will then argue that activists’ struggles after 2003 also articulated that the 1958 constitutional replacement was a founding moment in Iraq’s history.II.