Intersectionality and Solidarity in Syrian Feminist Media Activism: Lessons from 2011–2021 for Post-Assad Era
7/10/2026
By Katty Alhayek and Milia Eidmouni
Abstract:
This article examines Syrian women’s embodied experiences of violence, activism, and solidarity in the decade following the 2011 Syrian revolution. Drawing on participatory research and 20 interviews with women media activists conducted between 2018 and 2021, it analyzes feminist media advocacy in regime- and opposition-controlled areas. Focusing on MAUJ for Development Foundation and the Women Support and Empowerment Unit, it shows how media activism fostered voice and visibility while confronting repression, insecurity, harassment, and unequal resources. It draws on and contributes to debates in communication studies and intersectional feminist theory that challenge the colonial gaze and the dehumanization of Arab and Muslim women by offering lessons from 2011–2021 for inclusive representation, accountability, and reconstruction following Assad’s regime’s end in 2024.
Introduction
This article explores the diversity of Syrian women’s embodied experiences and knowledges of violence, activism, and solidarity after the 2011 Syrian revolution and subsequent war. While the article’s empirical focus is on the period from 2011 to 2021, the end of Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian regime on December 8, 2024, provides an important new context for revisiting this formative decade and drawing lessons from Syrian women’s activism for debates about justice, accountability, representation, and political reconstruction.
Throughout the article, we demonstrate the opportunities and challenges facing Syrian women’s media activism and show how this activism is shaped by intersecting markers of identity, including class, education, gender, ability, sexuality, family status, and place of origin. We draw from and contribute to active debates in communication studies and intersectional feminist theory that challenge the colonial gaze and the dehumanization of Arab and Muslim women (Abu-Lughod, 2002; Alhayek, 2014; Alhayek, 2015; Mohanty, 1984; Mohanty, 2003; Nordstrom, 2005). Methodologically, the article is based on a community-engaged participatory research approach supported by 20 interviews conducted with Syrian women activists and journalists between 2018 and 2021, using a combination of purposive and network sampling. These interviews were facilitated by the researchers’ positionality as Syrian women scholars who studied and worked in journalism inside the country before leaving Syria as part of the mass displacement that followed the 2011 revolution. However, since then they maintained collaboration with the Syrian feminist media community through different research and journalist projects such as the Syrian Female Journalists Network and Salon Syria.
Drawing on the work of Crenshaw (2013) and Lutz, Vivar, & Supik (2016), we use intersectionality to refer to the ways in which social categories— such as gender, class, ability, religion, age, and place of origin—affect the experiences of Syrian women journalists and activists at the individual level and in relation to the political, cultural, social, and economic systems they navigate. Intersectionality therefore directs attention both to the differentiated social locations of Syrian women journalists and activists and to the political, economic, cultural, and media structures through which inequality is produced and reproduced (Collins, 2019; Cho, Crenshaw, & McCall, 2013; Yuval-Davis, 2006). Rather than treating these categories as fixed or additive, we examine how they acquire meaning within the specific conditions of war, authoritarianism, displacement, fragmented governance, and unequal media access in Syria. We apply Mohanty’s (2003) understanding of solidarity to the Syrian case to describe Syrian women’s aspirations to overcome ideological and geographical divides in their collective fight for freedom as well as dedication to achieve inclusion, justice, and community empowerment.
The article proceeds as follows. We begin by situating Syrian women’s feminist media activism in the broader political and media contexts that emerged after the 2011 revolution. We then explore the experiences of Syrian women media journalists and activists with feminist beliefs and self-labelling as a “feminist.” Following that we focus on the work of two organizations: MAUJ for Development Foundation (formally Radio Souriat) in the Assad regime-controlled region and the Women Support and Empowerment Unit (WSU) in the opposition-controlled region. We analyze how women activists used media advocacy strategies to support feminist agendas indirectly and how the political and media conditions of the 2011–2021 period shaped the possibilities, constraints, and risks of their work. We also examine the limits of dominant representations that stereotype Syrian women and fail to capture the diversity of their embodied experiences, political agency, and media practices. Revisiting these experiences after the end of the Assad regime allows the article to identify lessons from this earlier period for future feminist media activism, representation, and reconstruction in Syria.
Context of Syrian feminist media activism
Over the last decade, information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as social media, were central tools for Arab women’s activism and their efforts toward integrating a feminist agenda at the center of any social and political transformation (Khamis & Mili, 2018). Syrian women activists used social media to amplify their voices creatively and bring their stories and narratives to the spotlight (Asalia, 2022). Women activists and journalists in Syria have effectively contributed to the struggle against authoritarianism and gender inequality by utilizing ICTs, which has led to the rise of grassroots women’s initiatives and media organizations working on empowerment and increased visibility of marginalized groups (Alhayek, 2016; Esposito & Sinatora, 2021; Tazi, 2021). While Syrian activists used ICTs like social media to aid their efforts at improving the lives of marginalized women, they also sometimes misused them by spreading essentializing cultural and gender discourses that ignore historical, social, and political contexts (Alhayek, 2016). In this section, we provide a context of the media activism of Syrian women activists and journalists.
Syria’s media before 2011[i] operated under tight control, serving primarily to uphold the Ba’athist regime’s authority rather than facilitating genuine public discourse (Issa, 2016). The Assad regime’s approach to women’s activist groups before the Syrian revolution was characterized by efforts to “ban, contain, or absorb them” (SFJN, 2019). If women were from ethnic minorities and other marginalized groups, like the Kurds in Syria, the media invisibility was doubled as Syrian journalist Sherine Ibrahim explains:
“In particular the Kurds, but all ethnic groups in the Jazira Region felt marginalized before 2011. The Syrian government media had only one program “في رحاب الجزيرة” “On the Edge of Al-Jazeera,” which no one really watched. The culture of the Jazira region and its customs and traditions including the beautiful art in the region and the renown people in the fields of poetry, literature… were ignored by the Syrian regime centralized media which is a real injustice and unfairness” (S, Ibrahim, personal communication, March 10, 2019).
As in other Arab countries, feminist activism in Syria was restricted by what Khamis and Mili (2018) referred to as the “first lady syndrome,” (p. 13) which is a top-down state feminism that is imposed by the states in order to gain national and international legitimacy.
In the early 2000s, the Syrian feminist movement gained more visibility and recognition in the context of what is called the “Damascus Spring,” which was a short period of open political and social debate in Syria after the death of President Hafiz al-Assad in June 2000 and the transfer of power to his son Bashar al-Assad. In this period, numerous public forums (منتديات/muntadayāt) emerged. In this context, dedicated feminist forums were established, and feminist ideas were actively discussed by women activists who actively engaged in such public forums.
Dr Maya Al-Rahbi (2021)[ii] credits this period with giving women activists space to spread feminist ideas through writing in newspapers, printed magazines, and online forums. In this period, feminist organizations رابطة النساء السوريات, such as the Syrian Women’s Association (رابطة النساء السوريات), which separated from the Syrian Communist Party revitalized the long-standing Syrian feminist movement. Despite its limited resources, such organizations begin to play a more active role locally by successfully conducting campaigns advocating for women’s rights. Internationally, they monitored the Syrian government by writing a shadow report to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (known as the CEDAW Committee).[iii] However, women’s organizations were required to register under the General Women’s Union (GWU), the sole officially sanctioned women’s organization in Syria, which hindered the natural development of the feminist movement.
The Syrian revolution of 2011 marked a significant turning point for women’s activism in Syria and created new spaces for women to openly voice their concerns, mobilize for their rights, and participate in broader social and political movements[iv] (Bank, 2020; Ramadan & Ozden, 2021).
During the revolution, social media platforms provided a decentralized space for women activists to share ideas and facilitate critical discourse around social justice issues on a local and regional scale. In this period, several Syrian feminist media organizations emerged as a response to the dual oppression faced by women: state repression and rooted patriarchal norms. At least 196 independent media outlets and initiatives launched since the beginning of the Syrian revolution in 2011 (Issa, 2016). These media organizations and associated outlets were operating in the Assad regime-controlled regions; in the opposition-controlled regions; in the Kurdish forces-controlled regions (known as Rojava); and later in diasporic locations. It is noteworthy that several of these media outlets ceased operations at some point after 2018 due to numerous challenges, including the detention and disappearance of team members, additional security threats, displacement, and a shortage of sustainable funding. In addition, their websites are presently inaccessible. For example, access to Saiedet Souria Magazine and Jasmin Syria Magazine is unavailable, prompting questions regarding the documentation and archival practices of these media organizations. At the same time, several feminist media organizations are still operating inside Syria and in diasporic locations, such as the Syrian Female Journalists Network, MAUJ for Development Foundation (formally Radio Souriat), Women Support Unit, and the Syrian Anonymous Journalists. They have succeeded in raising awareness and bringing national and international attention to the gender-specific impact of the ongoing conflict on Syrian women and marginalized communities. Using platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and X (known previously as Twitter) allowed these journalists and media activists to network beyond national borders and reach global audiences to exchange their strategic mobilization, media skills, and influence with their peers, as well as to promote a feminist agenda that challenges authoritarianism and inequality in their countries (Khamis & Mili, 2018; Tazi, 2021). Moreover, they have been influencing public policy makers to ensure that women’s perspectives and experiences are heard and seen.
Utilizing social media during the Syrian revolution has enabled women human rights activists, and in particular women journalists, to explore new ways of online activism to tell their narratives, contribute to deconstructing the victimization of women, and express their opinions publicly. This has made their voices visible, accessible, and recognized by a larger audience (Alhayek, 2016; Alyousfi & Sabbagh, 2023). However, as Syrian journalist Mais Katt emphasizes, while Syrian media initiatives were affected by the Syrian government censorship before 2011, challenges for the initiatives that operated outside the government control post 2011 were affected by what she describes as “political money that funded media initiatives secretly without disclosing the budget and funding sources to the public. Their websites include nothing about the team, the source of their funding, or who their partners are” (M, Katt, personal communication, May 13, 2019). Mais Katt demonstrates the implication of this situation “It’s a huge risk that led to a lack of transparency and clarity which made these initiatives controlled by unknown parties to the public audiences. In recent years, this decreased, and a more professional movement has emerged” (M, Katt, personal communication, May 13, 2019). Examples of this type of professional media are Enab Baladi (Local Grapes), Radio Rozana, and ARTA FM (Alhayek, 2025).
Self-labelling as a feminist
Defining what the label feminist means is complex as there is no singular definition of feminism. While feminism represents different ideologies and socio-political movements, historically western feminist movements fought for women’s rights like voting, access to education, equal pay, and protection from harassment and domestic violence (Hawkesworth, 2018). However, critical feminist theories and activist practices, such as transnational feminism and intersectional feminism, were developed against western, white, classist forms of feminism (Crenshaw, 2013; Swarr and Nagar 2012). Instead of focusing only on equality of the sexes and resisting the patriarchy, transnational and intersectional feminists understand women’s oppression in relation to systems of domination such as capitalism, colonialism, racism, the patriarchy, and imperialism (Alhayek and Zeno, 2023; Crenshaw, 2013; Mohanty, 2003). In this section, we explore the experiences of Syrian women journalists and activists with feminist beliefs who self-identify as “feminists.”
Scholars such as, Yoder, Tobias, and Snell, 2011; Williams and Wittig, 1997; and Zucker, 2004, have shown that self-labelling and feminist beliefs do not necessarily go hand in hand, as many women endorse a diverse variety of feminist beliefs while disavowing the label “feminist.”
Syrian cartoonist Amani Al-Ali (Social, political cartoonist) [v] represents this case as she emphasizes “I don’t identify as a feminist at all. I work on these [feminist] issues without saying that I am a feminist or a women’s rights defender” (A, Al-Ali personal communication, September 02, 2021).
Chavia Ali (Kurdish-Syrian-Swedish human rights defender) [vi] believes that women by nature are feminists but many fear labelling themselves as such because of social and cultural factors such as education, customs, and traditions. She explains her position:
We are by nature feminists, but circumstances… led to distorting the concept of feminism from its true meaning. Thus, some women reject the term feminism… Sometimes feminism as a term has a negative connection that reduces it to the appearance and clothing of women while ignoring the moral, legal, and equality aspects of being true feminists (Chavia Ali, personal communication, September 30, 2021).
Many Syrians interviewees dismiss feminism as a Western ideology even when they hold feminist beliefs. This distortion of the concept of feminism in the eyes of many Syrian women might come from the domination of the Western universal patriarchal framework in understanding women’s suffering and experiences in Global South countries like Syria. Such understanding ignores historical analysis, local politics, and particularities of experience. Scholars such as (Abu‐Lughod, 2002; Alhayek, 2014; Alhayek, 2015; Mohanty 1984; Mohanty 2003; Nordstrom, 2005) have written extensively on how mainstream Western media and feminist scholarship portray women in countries like Afghanistan, Syria, and India as passive victims of monolithic, static versions of culture, patriarchy, and history. Instead, these scholars called for a more nuanced understanding of the real experiences of women in the Global South and their material realities and collective histories.
Many women become comfortable calling themselves feminists once they understand the stereotypes around feminist identity and see the possibilities of the feminist label to represent the complexity of their experiences and aspirations. The connection between lived experiences and feminist identification is evident in the experiences of Sobhiya and Nivin. Sobhiya (a media activist with the Women Support Unit in northwestern Syria) shares that “feminist awareness began to become clear to me at the end of 2019 after joining the Women’s Support and Empowerment Unit, one of the organisations in northern Syria” (Sobhiya, personal communication, August 09, 2021). Women like Sobhiya developed the awareness and the language to self-label as a feminist through on the ground activism by engaging in media work that fights gender stereotypes and by in-person communication with peers and experts. Nivin AlHotary (activist from Ghouta, chair of the Women Support Unit) acknowledges she had a feminist awareness since she was at least 18 years old but at the time she didn’t self-label as a feminist. Her feminist awareness came from her lived experience as a person born in Syria to a Jordanian father and a Syrian mother. Under the Ba’ath regime, Syrian law discriminates against Syrian women and doesn’t allow them to pass their citizenship to their children. Nivin explains: “I felt injustice because I never visited Jordan and Syria was the only home country I know, but I didn’t understand my experience in a language that mirrors feminist awareness until later in my life” (N, AlHotary personal communication, September 07, 2021). In the next section, we will explore more how Syrian women media journalists and activists navigate feminist beliefs and the label “feminist” in their work as we highlight the work of two women’s organisations: MAUJ for Development Foundation (formally Radio Souriat) and Women Support and Empowerment Unit (WSU).
Social issues from a feminist perspective
Between 2011 and 2024, in the Assad’s regime-controlled region[vii] Syrian feminist media activists that we interviewed for this research used advocacy strategies to support a feminist agenda indirectly. This strategy is demonstrated by the work of MAUJ for Development Foundation (formally Radio Souriat). Amera Malek launched Radio Souriat, later known as the MAUJ for Development Foundation, on December 25, 2014.[viii] At the time of her interview with us, she was serving as the director of the non-profit organization. In 2014, Malek was a member in the Building the Syrian State Political Party (BSS).[ix] Emerging from BSS, the Syrian Women Forum for Peace was founded by Mouna Ghanem, a co-founder of BSS and a senior gender advisor with many international organisations. Malek was working closely with Ghanem in the forum when she was introduced to Radio Nisaa FM[x] the first women’s Arabic-language radio station and website in the Middle East. The interaction with Radio Nisaa’s founders inspired Malek to create Radio Souriat as a project within the umbrella of the Syrian Women Forum for Peace which provided the radio with a source of funding. At this stage, Radio Souriat adapted radio programming by streaming their programs online on a morning schedule and an evening schedule. Malek described this stage: “We were operating like a regular radio… we were feminist radio more than a radio that focuses on women’s issues. This means we were discussing any social issue from a feminist perspective” (A, Malek, personal communication, April 18, 2019).
Six months after the launch of Radio Souriat, Malek decided to leave the forum in June 2015. At the end of 2015, Radio Souriat halted production for two reasons as Malek stated: 1) They needed to find a new source of funding after leaving the forum; 2) Malek was personally under security pressure from the Syrian regime for her activism and work with BSS (an opposition party). In 2016, Radio Souriat did not receive any funding. In 2017, Radio Souriat received a small grant (around $5,000) which allowed them to resume their work. In 2018, they gained a large grant that boosted their projects and allowed them to expand.
Radio Souriat’s main objective was to use media to serve women and promote feminist issues. Between 2017 and 2019, Radio Souriat was no longer operating as a traditional radio station. Rather, it was streaming online programs and started to operate as a non-profit organization with three main projects. The first project is to support pluralism and community cohesion. The second project is to promote the participation of youth and women in public affairs. The third project is to produce gender-oriented media to encourage a media discourse that is sensitive to gender issues. Malek explains this transition:
Our team did not find any feasibility to continue broadcasting online… when we say we are Radio Souriat it is not because we have online broadcasting like before, instead it is because we are doing alternative media work through social media; that means any project we do, we connect it with media outputs (A, Malek, personal communication, April 18, 2019).
Through their projects, Malek’s target audience is all Syrians. She clarified: “we don’t have general target audiences for everything we do, rather we have diverse media outputs and for each output we have a specific target audience” (A, Malek, personal communication, April 18, 2019). For example, Malek mentioned that Radio Souriat broadcast a program for a while called “Street Talk” (حديث الشارع) which targeted all Syrians and discussed, from a feminist perspective, general topics like the military reserve system which requires men between the age of 18-42 years old to report to the reserve forces.
In 2019, 41,000 people followed the Facebook page of Radio Souriat, which hosted the main media products and programs of the project. Later, in June 2020, the organization underwent formal legal registration in Syria under its current name, MAUJ, and acquired the status of a non-profit civil financial institution. MAUJ operates within a feminist and non-discriminatory governance framework, engaging in collaborative efforts to address prevailing social and developmental issues. Its approach centres on producing reality-grounded media content to foster systemic change. According to information available on its official website, the organization pursues four strategic programmatic pillars: promoting pluralism and social cohesion; advancing women’s participation in public life; developing and producing gender-sensitive media content; and ensuring long-term resource sustainability. In 2024, more than 52,000 people followed the Facebook page of MAUJ for Development Foundation.
Empowered network of women’s voices
Between 2011 and 2024, in the opposition-controlled region, the lived experiences of women, who established the Women Support and Empowerment Unit (WSU), inspired their work and feminist beliefs without necessarily self- labelling themselves as a “feminist.” The WSU’s official Facebook page describes its mission as the political, economic, social, and cultural empowerment of Syrian women.The co-founder and chair of WSU Nivin Al-Hotari explains that her feminist awareness began at the age of 17 after having witnessed the unfair treatment of women in her hometown of Deir Alzor (in eastern Syria): “I always noticed injustice towards women–they were relegated to agricultural work while men gave them instructions without participating themselves, but I didn’t know it was feminist awareness at the time” (N, Al-Hotari, personal communication, September 07, 2021). She adds that after she got married and settled in Ghouta (an area of the countryside surrounding Damascus) she noticed that “women’s primary work was in agricultural lands as well. I felt that everywhere in Syria’s farms, women were oppressed, and I felt that we had to work to improve the lives of women as a collective (N, Al-Hotari, personal communication, September 07, 2021). However, Nivin was not able to do anything until the onset of the Syrian revolution in 2011. During that time, she started to assess women’s needs in her area and to make connections between political change and gender justice: “I saw that the revolution could be against the regime, but also for women’s advancement. All my work concerned women’s issues during the revolution, but initially I hesitated to identify as a feminist until 2017” (N, Al-Hotari, personal communication, September 07, 2021). Nivin noticed that the deteriorating economic situation forced women into the workforce in conservative areas of the country where women didn’t have paid jobs before but performed “emotional work” in the “private world” of their homes and unpaid labor on the farms. Women started to get jobs outside their homes and farms that were not acceptable in the conservative areas before the uprising turned war, which led to a gradual acceptance of their participation in the public space. Nivin explains that “while underlying societal attitudes remained problematic in a lot of cases; at least we started to see restrictions being broken and a working woman being accepted more” (N, Al-Hotari, personal communication, September 07, 2021).
Driven by her lived experiences and the observation of women’s needs around her, Nivin co-founded the Women Support and Empowerment Unit (WSU) in 2018 to amplify women’s voices, and she serves as the organisation chair. Between 2018 and 2024, the WSU has grown to include over 600 members across various regions in northern Syria, with local committees addressing the specific needs of women in each area. According to Nivin, the organisation has faced challenges, such as navigating conservative social norms and dealing with online harassment and backlash against their work. However, Nivin and the unit’s team have recognized the importance of contextualising their approach and building trust within the community. Moreover, observing the media’s portrayal of Niqabi women (women who wear a niqab, which is a face veil, in addition to head coverings)[i] was one of the motivations behind creating “our news bulletin, نشرة أخبارنا[xi]” which is a women’s media initiative under Women Support Unit. Nivin says:
“From 2011 to 2018 and through the siege of Ghouta, as well as after being forcibly displaced to the north of Syria and Turkey, I observed that the media consistently stigmatised Niqabi women as either fanatics or ISIS members. However, in Syrian society, many women wear a niqab due to cultural and environmental influences. This misrepresentation created a sense of alienation, as the media’s coverage often reflected the personal biases of those reporting rather than the reality” (N, Al-Hotari, personal communication, September 07, 2021).
The media coverage of women’s issues in Syria has evolved from initially focusing on the revolutionary movement to gradually incorporating more gender-sensitive reporting as Nivin explains:
“Media tends to minimize the role of women, overlooking the fact that there were active women in leadership positions who deserved recognition but were not adequately covered by the media, the small daily details are still marginalized in media coverage” (N, Al-Hotari, personal communication, September 07, 2021).
According to Nivin, there is a need for more in-depth and nuanced coverage of marginalized issues and experiences, particularly those of women and detainees.
“It is important to directly engage with the affected individuals to understand the daily realities and challenges they face, which often differ from the broader narratives presented in the media. This shift in media approaches will provide greater visibility to the personal stories, success, and struggles of marginalized groups, rather than focusing solely on the overarching crises or injustices, at the same time this would help address the gaps in public understanding of gender issues and raise awareness of the multifaceted experiences and barriers encountered by these communities” (N, Al-Hotari, personal communication, September 07, 2021).
However, Nivin noted the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on bridging the knowledge gap between the women’s movement inside Syria and in the diaspora. With the spread of the pandemic, it became possible for more women to participate by attending conferences and workshops remotely, which provided several opportunities by overcoming previous barriers such as restrictions on travel and the absence of identification and official papers. As an example, Nivin explains: “I could not attend the Brussels meetings due to the difficulty of travel. After COVID-19, it became possible for me to participate online and be part of these events, and to talk about the needs of women inside Syria. When I participate, I can talk about the challenges women and organizations face” (N, Al-Hotari, personal communication, September 07, 2021).
Nivin has also highlighted the differences between the experiences and challenges faced by organizations in Syria and those outside the country, emphasizing the need for nuanced and context-specific support. Some of the main challenges for women’s organizations inside Syria include access to funding, legal registration, and sustainability in times of conflict. A major challenge for the WSU is the standards of the donors, including their registration criteria, which require organizations like the WSU to either register in regime-held areas or in Turkey. Some of the immediate goals of the WSU are addressing the personal safety of women journalists and media workers as well as increasing the number of women journalists capable of producing high-quality content. The ultimate goal of the WSU is to create a sustainable and empowered network of women’s voices that can effectively advocate for their rights and shape the narrative around their experiences.
In 2024 more than 8,600 people follow the Women Support Unit Facebook page, and they have seven committees spread across northern Syria.
‘Women’s jobs’ stereotype
Gender-stereotyped jobs influence people’s expectations if a male or female is a better “fit” for a given job (Doering & Thébaud, 2017). For example, while male-typed roles include military and defence, female-typed roles are thought to be preschool and kindergarten teaching. Syrian women media journalists and activists suffered from such stereotypes when working in the field of media and journalism. Amani Ali (Cartoonist from Idlib) describes the extreme challenges she faced when she started her career as a cartoonist because of her gender, place of origin, and family status. Amani who has a passion and talent for political cartoons, was discouraged from working as a cartoonist by one of the most famous political cartoonists, a man who told her that “Caricature drawing is men’s territory; there are no female cartoonists [in Syria]; maybe one or two but probably none” (A, Al-Ali, personal communication, September 02, 2021). Amani explains her dilemma that choosing the path to be a cartoonist was arduous because in her community even drawing landscapes is Haram [forbidden]. This context is why the first editor-in-chief that Amani worked with encouraged her to pursue only social caricature and to steer clear of political ones in order to ensure her protection from threats as Amani emphasises “I am worth a bullet to the Nusra Front who sent me a lot of threats due to my work as a cartoonist and the opinions I express.” Frustrated by the domination of men in her field and exclusion of women, Amani took up training with one of the most influential Syrian male political cartoonists, but Amani was disappointed with the quality of the training and how women are portrayed by male political cartoonists. As a result, Amani took it upon herself to train other female political cartoonists and to change the work environment and stigma for Syrian women cartoonists. Still Amani acknowledges that political and social restrictions affect women’s continuity in this field.
Similarly, Sherine Ibrahim faced challenges when she started to work in political media and the stereotype that this field is not appropriate work for women. Earlier in her career as a host of a political radio program, Sherine remembers that one of the guests hesitated to be interviewed by her because of his claim that the topic was too heavy to be handled by a ‘woman’ (Sh, Ibrahim personal communication, March 20, 2019). Sherine challenged the guest to move forward with the interview, allowing her to prove him wrong with her efficiency and readiness. While that guest was impressed by the end of the interview with Sherine’s skills, readiness and engagement with his work, Sherine emphasized that the ‘women’s jobs’ stereotype affects most women in political media. On the one hand, the subject of political media is deemed more appropriate for men than for women. On the other hand, media that handles social issues such as nutrition, caregiving, and cleaning tips is associated with female journalists in a way that reflects the gendered division of labour in society.
The lived experiences of women journalists–with the domination of men in the media and exclusion of women as well as the stereotype that the media is not appropriate work for women—pushed many Syrian women journalists to resign from media organizations that are controlled by men. Kholoud Helmi (Syrian journalist and co-founder and board member of the Enab Baladi newspaper) confirms this point and illustrates that many Syrian women journalists co-founded projects that men usurp, and this has led many women journalists “to leave these projects, despite being the true founders and to co-found media projects that target only women audiences” (Kh, Helmi, personal communication, March 17, 2019). This departure by many Syrian women journalists from general media projects to women-only media projects can be further understood in the context of risks and challenges that face women journalists which will be discussed in the next section.
Harassment and gender-based violence
A report by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and UNESCO shows that women journalists around the world face evolving challenges of intersectional online violence marked by racism, bigotry, and misogyny (Posetti, Shabbir, Douglas and Gardiner, 2022). In the report, 73% of women-identifying respondents experienced online violence based on their gender and 20% of the respondents had been abused offline in attacks seeded online.[2] Likewise, Syrian women media journalists and activists we interviewed for this research reported experiences of online and offline harassment and gender-based violence.[ii] For example, after her displacement from Syria to the United Sates, Ola Malas (journalist, TV/ Radio anchor and producer) hosted and produced a YouTube comedy show titled “Crazy Allosh,” which is based on previous work she hosted and produced in Syria between 2007 and 2011.[xii] In this show, Ola Malas tackles social and political issues critically by employing satire based on her unique, charismatic media personality. Episode 9 of this program, that was uploaded to YouTube on May 17, 2018, discusses harassment focusing on challenges that face Syrian women who experience this type of gender-based violence but also contextualizing the issue within the #MeToo social movement internationally.[xiii] Ola explains the fallouts of discussing harassment:
On the one hand, I got very positive feedback from people who shared their love and trust; many women sent me private messages saying that they had many similar stories to the ones I mentioned. But on the other hand, some men threatened to kill me, and some women accused me of calling for moral dissolution. In fact, some people insinuated that America changed me and made me a morally loose person… many people insulted me severely with words that made feel harassed from a distance. All this happened because I spoke the truth…” (O, Malas personal communication, July 30, 2018).
While Ola received positive feedback from many of her audience members, her experience of online harassment and threats as a Syrian woman journalist confirm the findings reported by Posetti, Shabbir, Douglas and Gardiner (2022) showing that women journalists face increased online attacks when gender is the main story theme being covered.[xiv] Other women journalists like Sherine Ibrahim integrated a feminist agenda into their work by raising awareness about harassment and related issues gradually. Every time she can, Sherine discusses harassment at ARTA FM. In the beginning, many men accused her of distorting the image of her community, and some men claimed that catcalling (street harassment) is not unwanted sexualized comments, rather it is a “gift” for women complimenting their beauty. Sherine used simplified language in her radio shows to demonstrate how many women perceive such sexualized comments as an intrusion upon their privacy which fuels their fear of rape. Sherine adds “Some men responded positively to such awareness raising efforts and apologised that they used to catcall women. A lot of our awareness efforts happened as radio conversation between me and my male colleague… Such conversations are more effective, and people are keener to respond to it positively” (Sh, Ibrahim personal communication, March 20, 2019).
Under-representation of marginalised groups’ complex experiences
Transnational and intersectional feminists have long criticised the binary representations of the women of the Global South as either victimised or empowered subjects (Alhayek, 2015; Mohanty, 2003). Such dichotomous media representation ignores the complexity of the experiences of women from marginalised groups and the effects of, on one level, the intersection of systems of oppression like authoritarianism, colonialism, classism, and heteropatriarchy. On another level, marginalised women’s experiences are affected by markers of identity such as class, education, gender, ability, sexuality, family status, and place of origin (Alhayek and Zeno 2023; Crenshaw, 2013; Lutz, Vivar, & Supik, 2016). Syrian women journalists and media activists we interviewed shared similar criticism of the binary representations of Syrian women in the media. For example, Soubhia (pseudonym) highlights most representations of Syrian women in the media lacks the context of women’s experiences, she adds:
Mostly, media highlights news stories of women like Kung Fu or Karate players, we cannot deny these success stories, but what about other types of success stories that are invisible, and we should as journalists search for them and bring them to the spotlight” (S, personal communication, August 09, 2021).
Weam Abdulkader (media activist with the Women Support Unit) further explains the invisibility of more nuanced contexts when covering marginalized women’s experiences: “Media focuses on issues such as child marriage but doesn’t cover opposite issues such as the advanced age of marriage for a lot of Syrian women beyond what is traditionally perceived as their prime age” (W, Abdulkader, personal communication, August 04, 2021). Enab Baladi (2017, 2022) is one of the few Syrian media initiatives that covered such issues. According to Enab Baladi (2022), the “spinsterhood” rate is estimated to be 65% of women for different economic, social, and cultural factors including the imbalance in the numbers of men and women due to war and forced migration. Another issue raised by Weam is that media representation “focuses on women’s poverty and neglects volunteers and the double effort of [Syrian] women in humanitarian organizations (W, Abdulkader, personal communication, August 04, 2021). This issue has been noted by media scholars, such as Alhayek (2016) and Rothenberger & Schmitt, (2024), who show that while Syrians are largely represented in the media as desperately poor people, stories that highlight the resources within the community, such the work of Syrian activist humanitarian organizations, are under-reported in the media.
Other interviewees shared additional diverse concerns of marginalized women that are invisible in the media. One of these concerns is the representation of Syrian women with disabilities in the media. Chavia Ali (Kurdish-Syrian-Swedish human rights defender) notes some progress in portraying Syrian women in the media; however, she warns that “when media represent Syrian women with disabilities [especially in the field of entertainment such as Syrian Drama Series], their representation becomes more racist, more exclusionary, more violent, reducing women with disabilities to extremely miserable, aimless individuals” (Ch, Ali, personal communication, September 30, 2021). Al-Shamiya (2022) confirms Ali’s statement and distinguishes between the ways in which Arab drama and media represent women with disabilities differently than men with disabilities. While “Arab drama often portrays women with disabilities as abused, pitiful victims of rape and sexual harassment… Arab drama portrays men with disabilities as examples of determination, intelligence and effectiveness” (Al-Shamiya, 2022, para. 7-9). This intersection of gender and ability further demonstrates how different markers of identity affect Syrian women’s embodied experiences and their representation in the media.
Conclusion
This article contributes to scholarship on decolonising feminism and communication studies, such as (Lugones, 2010; Chakravartty, Kuo, Grubbs, & McIlwain, 2018), by using an intersectional lens to challenge Western representations of Arab and Muslim women as passive victims of monolithic and static forms of culture, patriarchy, and history. Between 2011 and 2024, Syrian women practice solidarity through organizations, such as, MAUJ for Development Foundation and the Women Support and Empowerment Unit (WSU), that aspire to overcome ideological and geographical divides and to achieve justice, and community empowerment.
We also contribute to scholarship on understanding the relationship between feminist beliefs and self-labelling as “feminist” (Yoder, Tobias, and Snell, 2011; Williams and Wittig, 1997; Zucker, 2004). We demonstrate the connection between lived experiences and feminist identification
in the case of women from the global south like Syrian women. While many Syrian women interviewees dismiss feminism as a Western ideology even when they hold feminist beliefs; they
become comfortable naming themselves feminists once they understand the stereotypes around feminist identity and see the possibilities of the feminist label to represent the complexity of their experiences and aspirations.
We showed that Syrian women’s media activism is affected by markers of identity such as class, education, gender, ability, sexuality, family status, and place of origin. When working in the field of media and journalism, the stories of Amani Ali and Sherine Ibrahim illustrate the challenge of gender-stereotyped jobs that deem media and journalism as not appropriate work for women. Other journalists like the case of Ola Malas highlight the challenge of intersectional online violence marked by racism, bigotry, and misogyny, especially when women journalists discuss stories where gender is the main theme. Additionally, Syrian women journalists and media activists we interviewed criticised the binary representations of Syrian women in the media as either victimised or empowered subjects. We elucidated the layers of marginalization and how the intersection of different markers of identity such us gender, ethnicity, and disability, increase the invisibility of women’s diverse experiences in the media.
The end of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on December 8, 2024, makes the experiences examined in this article newly consequential. The post-Assad era is being shaped by the institutional, social, economic, and territorial inequalities produced over more than a decade of war, displacement, authoritarian rule, foreign intervention, and fragmented governance. The experiences of Syrian women media activists between 2011 and 2021 show that women’s meaningful political participation requires sustained support for women-led organizations, locally grounded media initiatives, secure and equitable access to resources, and protection against online and offline gender-based violence. It also requires recognizing the different conditions faced by women across regions, classes, ethnicities, religious communities, abilities, family circumstances, and displacement trajectories.
These findings also suggest that media will be central to struggles over whose experiences, histories, and political claims shape Syria’s future. As the country confronts questions of accountability, return, reconstruction, and social cohesion, feminist media activism can help resist both the erasure of women’s political labour and the reduction of Syrian women to passive victims or symbolic representatives of national recovery. The lessons learned from this research underscore the value of media practices that connect feminist concerns to everyday social, economic, and political issues; build trust within communities; and create spaces for marginalized women to narrate their own experiences. At the same time, the post-Assad moment demands caution: new political arrangements may reproduce older patriarchal, sectarian, or exclusionary forms of power unless feminist actors are treated not simply as beneficiaries of reconstruction, but as knowledge producers, political agents, and indispensable partners in imagining a more inclusive Syrian future.
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Notes
[i] In late 2010, the so-called “Arab Spring” uprisings began to sweep across the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, challenging governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and Libya. The Syrian revolution started in mid-March 2011 as a non-violent social movement. The Syrian government’s violent suppression of the peaceful protests sank the country into an armed conflict involving local, regional, and international actors such as Russia, Iran, Turkey, and the United States. It is difficult to estimate the numbers of victims of enforced disappearance and political prisoners by all political groups involved in the conflict; however, around 6.8 million are internally displaced and more than 6 million are refugees or asylum-seekers abroad. See: BBC. (2023, May 2) Why has the Syrian war lasted 12 years?. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35806229
[ii] Dr. Maya Al-rahbi, the director of Musawa Women’s Study Center since 2012. You can read more about Musawa Women’s Study Center activities here: https://musawasyr.org/arch/
[iii] You can read more about Syrian feminism, in Kalamon magazine Issue 16 produced in cooperation with the Musawa NGO https://shorturl.at/CO685
[iv] You can read more about Pathways Of Feminist Movement In Post -2011 Syria here:
https://www.badael.org/publications?page=4
[v] You can check samples of Amani Al-Ali’s cartoons here: https://www.cartoonmovement.com/cartoonist/14724?page=0
[vi] You can read more about Chavia Ali and her work in Arabic here https://ar.chaviaali.org/who-is-chavia
[vii] There are some emerging feminist media organizations and initiatives inside the Syrian government-controlled region such as Sada Al Janub صدى الجنوب; Syrian Feminists/ نسويات سوريات; صوت سوري/ Syrian Anonymous Journalists.
[viii] The name of the organization changed from Radio Souriat to MAUJ 6 years after the launch. The name change was necessary to get an official license to operate as a non-governmental organization; as getting a license while operating as a radio was not possible due to media regulations. Also, Radio Souriat was getting confused with Syria TV تلفزيون سوريا who opposes the government and broadcast from Turkey which endangered the people associated with Radio Souriat. You can read more about the organization in Arabic here: https://mauj.org/%D8%B9%D9%86-%D9%85%D9%88%D8%AC/
[ix] Building the Syrian State Political Party was established on September 10, 2011, in Damascus. It aims for establishing a democratic civil state in Syria. You can read more about it here: https://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/49517?lang=en
[x] You can read more about Radio Nisaa FM here: http://www.radionisaa.ps/page.php?id=3b7y951Y3b7
[xi] You can read more about our news bulletin, نشرة أخبارنا here:
https://wsu-sy.org/
You can read more about our news bulletin, نشرة أخبارنا here:
[xii] Earlier versions of Crazy Allosh broadcast on multiple media format: 1) between 2009 and 2011 on Arabesque radio; in 2011 on TV; and between 2007 and 2011 printed in Shabablek Magazine until it was suspended after the beginning of the Syrian revolution. The Crazy Allosh YouTube channel has over 4.05K subscribers and 55 videos. You may access it here: https://www.youtube.com/@CrazyAllosh/videos
[xiii] This episode has over 7,710 views. You may access it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JjQmoOUcig
[xiv] According to Posetti, Shabbir, Douglas and Gardiner (2022), “Nearly half (49%; n=350) of the women journalists surveyed identified gender as the story theme most associated with online attacks, followed by politics and elections (44%; n=314), and human rights and social policy (31%; n=221)” (p.13).
[i] While veiled women or women wearing hijab only use head coverings, Niqabi women wear a niqab, which is face veiling in addition to head coverings.
[ii] A recent report by the Syrian Women’s Network, شبكة المرأة السورية titled “Guide to Responding to the Needs of Syrian Women in Syria and Refuge Countries” demonstrates that domestic violence remains a significant obstacle to women’s political participation at the national and local levels. According to the report’s findings, there is a lack of safe spaces where women can get protection and legal aid. You can read more about it here:
https://swnsyria.org/archives/17719
[1] While veiled women or women wearing hijab only use head coverings, Niqabi women wear a niqab, which is face veiling in addition to head coverings.
[2] A recent report by the Syrian Women’s Network, شبكة المرأة السورية titled “Guide to Responding to the Needs of Syrian Women in Syria and Refuge Countries” demonstrates that domestic violence remains a significant obstacle to women’s political participation at the national and local levels. According to the report’s findings, there is a lack of safe spaces where women can get protection and legal aid. You can read more about it here:
https://swnsyria.org/archives/17719
About the authors
Katty Alhayek is an Assistant Professor in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University in Canada. Alhayek’s research centers around themes of marginality, media, audiences, gender, intersectionality, and displacement in a transnational context. Alhayek holds a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the United States with a graduate certificate in Advanced Feminist Studies.
Milia Eidmouni is a PhD student in Educational Studies: Gender and Women’s Studies at McGill University, Canada. Her academic and professional background centres on how feminist media, education, and digital literacy intersect to advance social transformation. Her doctoral research examines digital feminist archives and the gendered dimensions of Syrian collective memory within transitional socio-political contexts.