Woman in Iraq

It matters to woman in the Arab world to learn, if only in brief, of the conditions of woman in the various countries. And here we begin by acquainting her with woman in Iraq.

In the Arab world today there is a great cultural renaissance whose trunks stretch out over all its regions, heralding a perceptible progress. And Iraq, which groaned under the yoke of ignorance for a long stretch of time, has felt its need of that culture which every advanced nation striving for its freedom and its dignity requires. So it began to urge its girls toward the schools, knowing that there is no true renaissance in any nation unless woman shares in it — she who is the mother of tomorrow, and upon whose shoulders the new generation rises. The advanced girl flocked eagerly to the schools, the more so as the Ministry of Education made free instruction easy for her, thereby opening the road for the poor among its daughters to take their ample share of that overflowing spring.

The schools opened late in Iraq, and for that reason you find but few mothers who are educated. As for the new generation, its attendance at the schools is general, for the girl has come to understand that she has no worth in the present or in the future except through learning. Today she is not content with her intermediate and secondary studies, but has entered the colleges and the universities, studying with man on one and the same bench and plunging with him into the various subjects of culture and the sciences. Lately the way has been opened for her to enter the Higher Teachers' College, which stands in the place of the American University among us, and then the two colleges of Medicine and of Law — the demand for the latter being especially strong — and many are they who work in the field of medicine today. As for the practice of law, circumstances have not yet allowed her to take it up: the law graduate finds herself a post in the Ministry of Education as a directress or a general inspectress.

And the Iraqi girl is diligent in her work, jealous for her renaissance, persevering in labor to raise her social and moral standing; and her sense of this responsibility has led her to form associations that work actively to demand woman's rights, to fight the ignorance that is rife, and to better social conditions — such as the society "Buyut al-Umma," which is directed by a select group of the ladies of Baghdad and under whose banner gathers every girl who wishes to work in the field of human service. Its aim is to help the Iraqi girl who cannot help herself. The Ministry of Education, moreover, lends its aid by sending educational missions every year to Europe and the Arab countries, to make of its missions a weapon with which to fight ignorance, illiteracy, and backwardness.

This is the working class among whom fanaticism has grown scarce, and which has understood the meaning of the responsibility resting upon it, and has begun its struggle in life.