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Iraqi Kurdish bodybuilder breaks down gender barriers
The nutritionist and former photographer returned to Kurdistan from Germany three years ago and found a conservative and patriarchal society where her passion for bodybuilding raised some eyebrows.
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In this picture taken on April 27, 2023, Iraqi Kurd Shylan Kamal poses for a picture at a gym in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. As a young girl, Shylan would help her mother knead bread until one day she realised the work was a way to build up muscles -- and she liked it. Now 46 and herself a mother to three adult children, Kamal sees her passion for bodybuilding as a matter of gender equality in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region.
(AFP /Safin Hamed)
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s a young girl, Iraqi Kurd Shylan Kamal would help her mother knead bread until one day she realised the work was a way to build up muscles -- and she liked it.
Now 46 and herself a mother, Kamal sees her passion for bodybuilding as a matter of gender equality in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region.
"Having muscles is good for women too," she told AFP during a session at a gym in the provincial capital Arbil, where she spends four hours training every day.
"We can express our beauty through bodybuilding," Kamal said.
The nutritionist and former photographer returned to Kurdistan from Germany three years ago and found a conservative and patriarchal society where her passion for bodybuilding raised some eyebrows.
But she refused to let opinions stop her.
"I don't care at all what people say, I have my own opinions," she said, adding that she dislikes the traditional beauty norms society imposes on women.
