Kurdish women fighting on the frontlines.

Women fighting on the front line in defense of Kurdistan play an important and vital role in the movement. They are fighting for the rights of Kurd women and Kurdish autonomy.

The women are mostly former Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters who say that they now pursue more of an educational and co-ordinating role in support of Kurdish women’s rights. Airstrikes have become a regular hazard as tensions rise between their outlawed organisation and the Turkish Government.
Treated as equals by their male counterparts on the battlefield as well as in the political arena, women fighters are trained to use Kalashnikovs, grenades and other weapons before being dispatched in mixed and single-sex units.
The best women fighters are also able to climb up the ranks to positions of command, with the “self-defence� armed wing of the PKK operating an obligatory 40 per cent female quota.

A look at many of the revolutionary struggles through out history, women are often asked to join the frontlines to fight for their countries. Most wars have allowed women to leave traditional gender roles. But when the war is over, it is all “get back in the kitchen!” So I am apprehensive when women die for the cause, as often the cause doesn’t end up serving them.

At first the Turkish Army did not take the women rebels, who have been part of the PKK’s armed struggle since it was begun in 1984, seriously.
“Then they realised that the women are as tough if not tougher than the men,� said Ms Surbuz, an attractive woman with short, bobbed, brown hair.
“After this the soldiers stopped distinguishing between the male and the female fighters. I think they are now more afraid of the women because the women are more disciplined and they will never surrender.�
“We will either kill or be killed,� she added. “For me it is freedom, success or death. It is simple.�

I don’t know. Amazing on one level yes. But sacrificing so many bodies for the nation and female bodies at that, I have issues with that. This battle has been fought for a long time. Will Kurdistan be a feminist state?
via TimesOnline.