The Small Miracle You Haven't Heard About Amid the Carnage in Syria
Democratic
Confederalism takes a hard line on the role of women in society. While
Americans and Europeans may like the picture of sexy young women smiling
while they kill IS soldiers, their official program verges on what
Reddit might call "misandry."
"The fundamental question is why
man is so jealous, dominant and villainous where woman is concerned,"
Öcalan writes, "why he continues to play the rapist." He calls for a
"total divorce" from "the five-thousand-years-old culture of male
domination," including but not limited to capitalism, the state, the
nuclear family, prisons and the constructed gender binary. Part of the
practical application of this theory includes the formation of
women-only organizations like the YPJ, which operate alongside rather
than beneath gender-integrated associations like the People's Protection
Units (YPG). Decision-making in Rojava at all levels requires a quota
of 40 percent women, and every municipality is led by a male-female
team. Hardly the stagnant, patriarchal image Americans assign to Middle
Eastern communities.
