“Resource Spotlight Monday”: Today, the Gender and Identity Factors Platform (GIFP) features “Sexual violence, identity and gender: ISIS and the Yezidis, Conflict, Security & Development" in commemoration of The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (GBV), an annual campaign from November 25 to December 10, 2024.
This article explores the intricate relationship between gender, identity formation, and violence within the context of ISIS's atrocities against the Yezidi community. It emphasizes that gender norms play a pivotal role in shaping singular and exclusive identities within conflict settings. ISIS's systematic sexual and gender-based violence against Yezidi women is examined not merely as isolated incidents but as manifestations of deeper structural inequalities rooted in long-term gender and identity hierarchies. These inequalities intersect with ethnic and religious identities, intensifying the marginalization and targeting of minority groups like the Yezidis. The construction of ISIS's militant masculinity through sexual violence illustrates how gendered identity formation can perpetuate and reinforce hegemonic power dynamics.
The article underscores that such violence is not incidental but institutionalized, driven by entrenched socio-economic and political contexts that normalize and justify the objectification and commodification of women's bodies as tools of war and domination. By tracing historical continuities in Iraq's governance and gender hierarchies, the paper illuminates how ISIS exploited existing inequalities to assert dominance, thus linking structural gender inequalities with the systemic perpetuation of identity-based violence.
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