Intersectionality in Iranian journalism: examining the influence of ethnicity, religion, and socio-economic factors on gender roles

this study employs an intersectional lens to examine the embodied experiences of Kurdish women porters (known as Kolbars in Kurdish) in Iranian Kurdistan, drawing on journalistic sources. The findings reveal that Kolbar women are victims of interconnected factors, including gender, ethnicity, the rigid patriarchal culture in the region and country, uneven distribution of resources and wealth nationwide, as well as economic sanctions and state decline. They resist these multifaceted forms of oppression by risking their lives to transport goods across mountainous borders, enduring silence, and resorting to suicide when no other options remain. This research contributes to feminist intersectionality discourse by reconstructing the intersectional dimensions of a marginalized, disenfranchised, and understudied population of women in one of the world’s most gender-unequal countries.The study applies an intersectional approach to analyze the plight of Kurdish women porters (Kolbars) in Iranian Kurdistan, exposing the nexus of oppression at the intersections of gender, ethnicity, religion, and economics. Journalistic materials form the empirical basis, documenting the daily struggles of women forced into dangerous cross-border smuggling due to systemic marginalization. The results highlight how Kolbar women face layered discrimination: as Kurds in a Shiite-dominated state, as members of the poorest socioeconomic strata, and as women in a patriarchal culture. Their labor entails extreme risks – from hypothermia and landmines to shootings by border guards. With no alternatives, some turn to suicide as a final act of resistance.

intersectionality, Kurds, Kolbar, feminism, ethnicity, journalism, victim