Saddams kvinnor - stöttepelare och akilleshälar

Abstract

Women in Iraq have become endowed with a symbolic function and linked to particular constructions of national identity in the official rhetoric. In this article, different themes treated by Saddam Hussein in his speeches to the women of the Party are analyzed from the point of view of constructions of gender and national identity. On a fundamental level, dichotomizations of gender are essential to the party rhetoric, in which women are endowed with a double and seemingly paradoxical function: they are simultaneously the pillars and the Achilles heals of Iraqi society.