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1. The Private Sphere Trap: Women and the climate crisis in Iraq

Author:
Laila Barhoum
Publication Date:
06-2025
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
This Oxfam briefing paper examines the intersection of gender inequality and climate change in Iraq, focusing on the agricultural sector. Women in Iraq face systemic barriers that confine them to the "private sphere," limiting their participation in decision-making processes critical to climate adaptation and mitigation. Through qualitative research, including focus group discussions and key informant interviews, the paper highlights how social norms, economic dependency, and lack of access to resources exacerbate women’s vulnerability to climate impacts. It provides actionable recommendations to foster inclusive climate action, such as raising awareness, leveraging respected female leaders, and improving technical support for farmers. The report underscores the urgent need to dismantle male-dominated structures to build a resilient and equitable future for Iraq.
Topic:
Agriculture, Climate Change, Inequality, Rural, Decision-Making, Adaptation, Livelihoods, Gender, and Social Norms
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

2. Silence kills! Victim-blaming social norms and violence against women

Author:
Sevinç Bermek, Konstantinos Matakos, and Asli Unan
Publication Date:
07-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)
Abstract:
Despite its huge social, psychological and economic costs, gender-based, intimate partner violence (IPV) is a phenomenon that persists in many countries. IPV is often not actively contested by society the persistence of victim-blaming norms might increase its social acceptability and thus hinter policy and behavior change. Are persisting victim-blaming attitudes and lack of action/policy support because of differences in own values or social norms? This paper examines the role of patriarchy values and social norms on gender attitudes towards and action/policy support regarding intimate partner violence. We conducted an online survey experiment in which a sample of 4,000 respondents in Turkey –a country with the highest IPV prevalence among OECD members– was randomly assigned to receive hypothetical IPV scenario treatment with or without invocation of social norms, or control. Simply making the existence of a social norm salient (by eliciting respondents’ incentivized beliefs on what the majority/others think) increased support for policies to combat IPV by 3 to 4 percentage points compared to the control group. Our results suggest that while patriarchal attitudes are rather immovable and better at predicting own attitudes towards gender-based IPV, social norms do a much better job at changing policy preferences and (incentivized) behavior. Thus, policy change is possible even if individual patriarchy values are relatively stable. These findings highlight the need to consider the role of social norms when designing policies to tackle IPV. By exploiting our dynamic information-updating design, we also find strong convergence of individuals’ attitudes (on gender-based violence) to the elicited social norms.
Topic:
Women, Gender Based Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, Survey, and Social Norms
Political Geography:
Turkey and Middle East