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On the women who fought the Islamic State's territory -- and won.
The story of America’s partners in the ISIS fight cannot be told without talking about the role of the women who led in battle against men who bought, sold and enslaved women. Talk to them and they will tell you they are not just battling ISIS, but the entire mindset that says women are worth nothing and matter none. These women signed up and refused to back down against the men of the Islamic State, and they have pressed forward to write what they call a new chapter for women, not just in Kurdish communities, but across the region. In the process, as I have seen for myself, they have built an experiment in women’s equality that goes well beyond what we have seen until now, anywhere in the world.
For the past two years I have chronicled for my next book the stories of the women who led the battle against ISIS as the partner force for the United States. The respect the American forces felt for these battlefield fighters and commanders is shown in the words they used to describe these women: warriors, leaders, fighters.
This all-women military force sits at the center of a politcal experiment based upon the notion that true equality is possible for women and good for everyone. And brought to you by women who spent four years battling — at close range — men who bought, sold and enslaved women while leading men in that fight.
These young women — from Kurdish, Arab, Christian communities and beyond — have given all to beat ISIS. And on the heels of that fight, these young women created a real-life utopian push for equality in the last place most would expect to find it. On the ashes of the battle against the physical territory of the Islamic State, they launched an unlikely political experiment in which women play a leading role in all political bodies. And all this while almost no one outside its borders was taking note.
Spend time with these women — Kurds, Christian, Arabs — -and it is clear they fight not just to defeat the Islamic State, but to gain against extremism and to advance the idea of women’s equality. After all, who are the first people to pay the price when extremists win? Women and girls. Across communities.
https://medium.com/gaylelemmon/on-the-women-who-fought-the-islamic-states-territory-and-won-732263abfc05
For the past two years I have chronicled for my next book the stories of the women who led the battle against ISIS as the partner force for the United States. The respect the American forces felt for these battlefield fighters and commanders is shown in the words they used to describe these women: warriors, leaders, fighters.
This all-women military force sits at the center of a politcal experiment based upon the notion that true equality is possible for women and good for everyone. And brought to you by women who spent four years battling — at close range — men who bought, sold and enslaved women while leading men in that fight.
These young women — from Kurdish, Arab, Christian communities and beyond — have given all to beat ISIS. And on the heels of that fight, these young women created a real-life utopian push for equality in the last place most would expect to find it. On the ashes of the battle against the physical territory of the Islamic State, they launched an unlikely political experiment in which women play a leading role in all political bodies. And all this while almost no one outside its borders was taking note.
Spend time with these women — Kurds, Christian, Arabs — -and it is clear they fight not just to defeat the Islamic State, but to gain against extremism and to advance the idea of women’s equality. After all, who are the first people to pay the price when extremists win? Women and girls. Across communities.
https://medium.com/gaylelemmon/on-the-women-who-fought-the-islamic-states-territory-and-won-732263abfc05