The Everyday Feminist

13Why Everyday Feminists Need You

I remember hearing an everyday feminist once say, “Nobody represents us, nobody lives what we are living. Nobody feels for us. It's always been like that. Nobody stands up for us. We, the women and men of Basra, if we don't stand up for ourselves, we are doomed.” Her name is Reham Yacoub. Only months later, I heard an Al Jazeera news flash:

A female activist has been killed in the southern Iraqi city of Basra by unidentified gunmen who opened fire on the car she was in. Reham Yacoub, a doctor and activist in the local protest movement since 2018, was shot by an assault rifle‐brandishing gunman on the back of a motorcycle on Wednesday. Three women in the car at the time were wounded, one died later. Known for organizing women's marches, Yacoub had previously received threats against her life when she participated in training courses supervised by the US consulate in Basra in 2017 and 2018. Yacoub's killing marks the third incident this week in which gunmen targeted anti‐government political activists after one was killed and a separate attack saw assailants open fire on a car carrying at least two others.¹

I was stunned.

Reham Yacoub, an activist and women's gym manager in Basra, told media that she had been receiving death threats over her support for the protests, citing a photo of her with US consul Timmy Davis. “They used some old photos of me and the American consul and they added them to other photos of me in the protests, saying that ...