The way the educated middle class in Iraq of the 1920s, often referred to as Effendiyya, engaged new discourses about gender has received little attention in scholarly literature. The voice of Iraq's first generation of "new" women is especially absent. My paper will focus on Paulina Hassun, editor of "Layla", the first Iraqi women's magazine. Born in 1895 to an Iraqi father from Mosul, and a Palestinian mother, Paulina Hassun returned to Iraq in the beginning of the 1920s. Her aim was to establish the first women's organization and the first women's magazine in Iraq. Accounts of the hardships she encountered create the impression that Iraq was not yet ready for her feminist ideas and the model of womanhood she projected. Based on her writings, the period press, and archival materials my paper will offer an in-depth view of her experience and challenge this understating.