CRS Book Launch: Poor Dad, Rich Daughter: Gender Regimes, Citizenship, and Women’s Entrepreneurship in Post-ISIS Kurdist

Guest speaker: Kaziwa Salih, CRS Visiting Scholar

Poor Dad, Rich Daughter provides a comprehensive analysis of women’s entrepreneurship in post-ISIS Kurdistan, Iraq. It examines the experiences of Kurdish women entrepreneurs from the perspective of the complex matrix, which includes historical oppression, socio-political instability, economic rentierism, and gender regimes. The analysis moves beyond conventional notions of empowerment, viewing women's economic activities as ethical, relational, and political labor conducted amid structural abandonment and systemic neglect.

The book examines Kurdish women’s entrepreneurship through three interconnected dimensions: the historical and structural effects of conflict, political fragmentation, economic dependency, and gender inequality; the different pathways women use to build businesses through NGO support or informal networks that the author conceptualized as the “Three Cs”; and the social, religious, political, and technological barriers limiting their agency. Ultimately, entrepreneurship is presented as resilience, healing, resistance, and a pathway toward dignity, citizenship, and meaningful social change.

Finally, "Poor Dad, Rich…