Most Kurdish political parties in Turkey, Iran and Syria (Bakur, Rojhelat and Rojava) include women in both leadership positions and in their armed forces. Particularly the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its affiliated groups through Kurdistan, but also Komala in Iranian Kurdistan, make extensive use of female fighters. Such has traditionally not been the case for Iraqi Kurdish parties – particularly the dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). In the last 15 years or so, KDP and PUK officials claim that this has changed. Both parties now claim to field significant numbers of female peshmerga, insisting that they too incorporate women into their struggle for national liberation and security. This paper seeks to assess the extent to which this claim is true and why the difference existed in the first place. More importantly, it analyzes why the KDP and PUK felt the need to incorporate women fighters, or to at least claim they do.