Sabreen Kathim, 23, was born and lives in Baghdad. She is a poet and reporter for Al Hurra TV

"When I go abroad people are surprised I’m Iraqi. They have this opinion that we are always wearing black, always in a hijab, uncultured, uneducated. The media focuses on poor suffering women but they don’t film a beautiful, elegant woman going out shopping with her husband and children. But there is another side to Iraq. I’m liberal, I’m educated, I want to be free.

Despite this, Iraq is not better since the war. We have lost our communities, our ability to live together. The contentment we had with one another, regardless of which religious group you belonged to, has gone. The nation is going backwards. The lying, destruction and corruption we see in Iraq means there isn’t a good economy, no buildings, no improvement in education.

The moment we heard the Americans were going to enter Iraq in 2003, people started imagining and dreaming that Saddam Hussein would go. But the people didn’t want the Americans to enter. There’s a difference.

I saw a lot of Americans during the occupation. The kids were afraid of them because they were tall and big with weapons, wireless [radio mics] and sunglasses. But they [the US government] tried to portray a good picture of the armies occupying the cities – one of the ways was to give out sweets to the children. Every house had that sweet, that’s how you knew the Americans had been. They liked to learn Iraqi words from us. We have a very colloquial word, Ishtah, which means ‘go, move, get lost’ and you’d hear them in residential areas shouting “Ishtah, ishtah, ishtah.” And they’d dance in the streets with us. But this only happened after the US attacks on civilians, when people had become nervous of them. In fact, I think after that their orders had changed. Before they were rough and strict and kept their distance.

When you go into Baghdad now the city is covered with black flags. You hear religious recordings everywhere. Life is tough here now. When I go to Karada [a poor, religious area] they see me as very different because they are not used to seeing a woman without a hijab. They are not used to a woman who has male friends. They are not used to a woman going to a coffee shop. I went into one full of men and everyone was immediately silenced.

I don’t want to emigrate. I want to stay here but I find it difficult, I’m tired of always fighting. I love Baghdad but it’s a man’s society. They want women to be submissive and if she wants to be independent and enjoy life they call her (in English) a bitch. We still have a tribal society where a woman is not allowed to do anything or ‘interfere’ in daily life. This isn’t equality."

Interviews with Awezan Nuri, Sabreen Kathim, Shahd Orfali and Farah Hassani by Dina Mousawi whose play on the Iraq war, Return, by London company 3Fates is showing at Aat International Festival in Jordan, and in London later this year. Visit 3fates.com for details. Interviews with May Wasfi Tahir and Haifa Zangana by Victoria Brittain, former associate foreign editor of The Guardian, a consultant to the UN on the impact of war on women, and on children, and author of Shadow Lives: The Forgotten Women Of The War On Terror (£14.99, Pluto Press)

Iraq: 10 years on