“Women hold up half the sky”
– Mao Zedong

While there is no official count, it is believed that 30% to 40% of combatants in Kurdistan are women.
Abdullah Öcalan was born in 1949, from traditional, tribal Kurdish roots. He founded the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), the aim of which was to create a homeland for the Kurdish people. The ‘Kurdish Inhabited Region’ covers the border areas between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
He is currently a political prisoner in Turkey. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and The European Convention of Human Rights, all declare his imprisonment illegal. This hasn’t stopped Turkey, which has more political prisoners and journalists in prison than Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia combined.
Öcalan has published several books. One of which is Jineology – ‘science of women.’ In Kurdish, the word jin means “woman” and comes from the root jiyan, meaning “life.” Women have always been attracted to the PKK as a way to escape poverty and domestic violence.
Öcalan advocates a ‘basic responsibility’ of the Kurdish movement to liberate women. The PKK established its first all-female units of guerrillas in 1995, stating that to “break down gender roles solidified by centuries, women had to be on their own.”
These Women’s Protection Units or Women’s Defence Units, the “YPJ”, pronounced Yuh-Pah-Juh are an all-female militia involved in the Syrian civil war. Having joined the YPJ, women must spend at least a month practicing military tactics and studying the political theories of Öcalan, including Jineology. In any communal decision, it is required that at least 40% of women participate.

Lipstick guerrillas

In August 2014 Marie Claire published a photo shoot of these Kurdish women soldiers, dressed in khaki. They were praised for their bravery in fighting against the most unfathomable evil of our times, ISIS. The world championed them as an antidote to the death cult originating from the Middle East.
YPJ troops became vital in the battle against ISIS in Syria. The YPJ was forced to hold off ISIS attacks using only “vintage Russian Kalashnikovs bought on the black market, handmade grenades, and tanks they put together from construction vehicles and pick-up trucks.” In 2014 the United States began coordinating air strikes with the YPJ fighters on the ground.
The group has been praised for confronting traditional gender expectations and redefining the role of women in conflict in the region. YPJ militants often enter the militia over hardships endured in the family, like lost relatives caused by attacks or fighting. They play a role in changing Islamic thinking and society’s traditions. The YPJ has attracted international attention as an example of significant achievement for women in a region where they are systematically disadvantaged.
The late, great writer Christopher Hitchens cited the ‘empowerment of women’ as the only sure-fire route out of poverty. If you give women in emerging economies some credit finance, some corn or seeds, and some control over their reproductive cycle, the whole floor of their village will inevitably rise – socially, economically, medically, culturally. It works every time and it works everywhere, from Bangladesh to Bolivia.
Taking up arms against a sea of troubles, is another route.
Jineology is taught in Kurdish community centres throughout Turkey and Syria where women learn about self-defence against honour killings, rape and domestic violence, and where female victims of domestic abuse are helped.
These Kurdish freedom fighters were named ‘Women of the Year’ by Time magazine in 2014, alongside Malala Yousafzai, Christine Lagarde and Elizabeth Warren.
With bigger fish to fry, their reaction (I imagine) was “like, yeah, whatevs babe.”

James Neophytou