ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CULTURAL GENDER IDENTITY: A STUDY OF KURDISH WOMEN AND DIGITAL COLONIALITY

Abstract

This study examines the intersection of artificial intelligence and cultural gender identity through the lens of non-Western women, with particular focus on Kurdish women as a case study. It investigates how AI systems perpetuate, challenge, or transform representations of gender identity within marginalized cultural contexts. The study employs an interdisciplinary framework combining critical feminist theory, postcolonial science and technology studies, and cultural analysis. It synthesizes findings from recent empirical research on AI bias across linguistic contexts, examines case studies of Kurdish cultural production using AI technologies (Zozan C and Morehshin Allahyari) and analyzes theoretical frameworks including intersectionality and non-Western feminist ethics. The research reveals that AI systems consistently reproduce Western-centric gender biases while simultaneously erasing or distorting non-Western women's identities. Kurdish women face a "double marginalization" in AI systems—gendered stereotyping compounded by cultural invisibility. However, emergent practices by Kurdish artists, musicians, and activists demonstrate possibilities for reclaiming AI as a tool for cultural preservation, counter-representation, and identity reimagining. The study identifies significant linguistic inequities in AI training data that disproportionately affect Kurdish-language speakers and documents how gender bias manifests differently across cultural contexts. This study provides the first comprehensive examination of Kurdish women's relationship to AI systems, bridging critical AI studies with Middle Eastern gender scholarship. It introduces the concept of "digital coloniality" to describe how AI systems perpetuate historical patterns of cultural marginalization, while proposing a framework for "culturally-sovereign AI" grounded in non-Western feminist epistemologies.