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ismnotwasm

(41,921 posts)
Sun Apr 21, 2013, 09:55 AM Apr 2013

Kurdish women warriors battle in Syria

Engizek, who goes by a single name, says the YPG's women fighters undergo the same rigorous training as men and fight alongside each other as well as eat together and share cooking and cleaning duties.

Standing on top of a bed and taking aim at a regime sniper from a pigeon-sized hole in a shrapnel-scarred wall, 18-year-old Mumtaz says joining the rebellion more than a year ago was a "liberating experience".

The only fighter in her family of four, she says she morphed overnight from an unknown high school girl to a warrior after she joined a YPG training camp in her hometown of Afrin, a largely Kurdish town north of Aleppo.

"Picking up the gun was a personal choice," said the sinewy bandana-clad fighter, a choice that bestowed freedom from rigid social mores that deem marriage the only culturally appropriate rite of passage for women.

As she spoke, her comrades, both men and women, took a break from duty in a nearby room in the desolate building, smoking, chatting and eating flatbread, cheese and fresh olives.

While the fighters mingle freely, the women live separately from male fighters and relationships are strictly forbidden. Engizek did not reveal what punishment awaits fighters who break that code of conduct.

Joining the struggle has exacted a heavy price -- most of the female fighters have given up all hopes of having families of their own some day.

Engizek, for one, is staunchly opposed to marriage.

"Marriage is enslavement," she said. "I don't want to be a slave, my girls don't want to be slaves."

The presence of women fighters in conservative Syrian society inspires both awe and shock.

"They are not women -- they are men," said one Free Syrian Army soldier with a bulbous beard. "A real woman is more feminine."

He said he was particularly opposed to women on the front line because their presence can "seriously distract male fighters".


http://au.news.yahoo.com/latest/a/-/latest/16828405/kurdish-women-warriors-battle-in-syria/

Interesting. While I oppose war, it's here to stay at least in my lifetime. There's never been a good reason women couldn't serve in combat, outside of socially imposed gender roles, the perceived value of modesty, and the ever present "woman are a distraction to men"



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Kurdish women warriors battle in Syria (Original Post) ismnotwasm Apr 2013 OP
If the male soldiers are so easily distracted LiberalEsto Apr 2013 #1
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