Western fascination with ’badass’ Kurdish women - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
►http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/10/western-fascination-with-badas-2014102112410527736.html
If there is a strong women’s movement among Kurds beyond the battlefield today, it has more to do with left-wing politics and the culture of resistance.
Those who see the Kurdish women’s fight as PR either treat all Kurdish parties as one homogeneous group or ignore the social revolution that preceded the armed struggle, which gave Kurdish women a reputation as important political actors and equal decision-makers. After all, Kurdish women have been fighting this cause with little media attention for decades.
In fact, the mass-mobilisation of women in Kobane is the legacy of decades-long resistance of Kurdish women as fighters, prisoners, politicians, leaders of popular uprisings and tireless protesters, unwilling to compromise on their rights.
Lastly, it does not help Kurdish women to be glorified as enemies of ISIL, if their entire political struggle is not supported. Western media’s white-washing of the Kurdish women’s resistance sanitises a radical struggle in such a way as to suit the perceptions of a western audience. Rather than challenging the awkward fact that the movement that the vast majority of women fighting ISIL belong to is labelled as a terrorist organisation - by Turkey, the EU, and the US - they conveniently leave it out.
