A war against women and life
Since the war of aggression led by the Syrian Transitional Government and the Turkish state started at the 6th January, women and women’s institutions have been systematically attacked.
During the massacres in the self administrated and mostly Kurdish populated neighborhoods of Aleppo, Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiye, which spread until the Euphrates region and the Cizire Canton, women were murdered, tortured and taken hostage and their institutions have been plundered, destroyed and burned.
Among other attacks of this kind, the destroying of the Jineolojî Library in Sheikh Maqsoud showed clearly that this war is not just about land and resources, but aimed at destroying the achievements of the women’s revolution. The library was named after the Jineolojî member, Nagihan Akarsel, who was murdered by the Turkish state in 2022. This was a place for girls and women to learn how to read, to deepen their knowledge and to strengthen themselves among other women and in connection with their history.
The history of wars and power has seen many piles of books burn, aiming to darken the collective consciousness, but they could not restrain the spring of development to come, which has always resisted.
The soldiers of the Syrian Transitional Government have shown their understanding of life, in how they approach death and treat the bodies of the people they have murdered. The throwing of a woman fighter’s body of the local security forces from a high rise building in Aleppo, or the cutting of the braid of a YPJ fighter and keeping it as a trophy, has shown the deep hatred of these persecutors against women and their dignity.
In Tabqa, the statue of a woman fighter, which was built in 2018 to remind the city of the liberation from ISIS, was thrown down and destroyed in the second week of January 2026. This attack, against the memory and the symbol of the women’s revolution, was accompanied by Turkish fascist signs and slogans.
After the center of the women’s organization Zenobia was burned down in Raqqa, black veils and Qurans were spread from door to door again, implementing a system in which women are isolated in their homes and forced to follow the line of “one god, one power”.
These attacks against women are a weapon of war, used to suppress the whole society and implement fear and paralysis by attacking its center, its heart. By attacking women, the whole society, a free life and a free future are attacked.
Women’s rights during the negotiations
With the agreement of the 29th January, which includes a ceasefire and integration of the Autonomous Administration with the state structures, the war moved from the battlefield to the negotiation table.
That does not mean the mentality of the Syrian Transitional Government changed at all. The same people, that some days ago were murdering women and are now spreading black veils in Raqqa, are now sitting at the other side of the negotiation table. In order to prevent ongoing massacres and stop the genocidal war, an agreement is needed.
This brings also the opportunity to secure the achievements of the revolution in the constitution, and to impact the whole of Syria, insisting on the values of democracy.
The topics most difficult in these negotiations are the women’s institutions and the principles and rights achieved in the women’s revolution. In fact, while consensus was found on the questions of military integration, resources and infrastructure, the rights of women are still not mentioned in the agreement: the consequences of the agreement on the lives of women are still unknown.
But it is known, that the achievements of the women’s revolution, the gains of over 15 years of struggle, will not be given up. The resistance of the women of Rojava is decisive.
The achievements of the women’s revolution
The Rojava Revolution is based on the commune and the principle of women’s liberation. Therefore its goal is not to take power, but the development of free life. The women’s liberation leads this change, and always reminds the whole society of the true aim of social transformation.
These are not only principles for the women’s revolution in Rojava, but principles for gender liberation in general.
1 The voice of women in politics: the Co-chair system
The Co-chair system builds a base for political self-defense of the voice of women in all political institutions. What does this system consist of?
As a system of shared responsibility in leading institutions, it ensures the respect of the will of both genders. The important point of the co-chair system is not the “pink quota”, but the fact, that there is not a single male person in the position of power. The Co-chair system, rooted in the communes, challenges the possibility for patriarchal mentality continuing to stay in power. The important factor is not biology, but socialization – and a collective leadership in political processes.
The commune is the smallest, but most effective, seed of the democratic system. It takes shape in all levels and institutions of democratic processes, and always has a shared leadership of both a man and a woman. In this system, each person maintains her own color and uniqueness, but cooperates and builds together the present and the future.
Often in the world, the progress achieved in the name of women’s liberation are limited to systemic adjustments, as quotas or legal equality clauses. These achievements, however, remain fragile within the confines of the male-dominated system. Indeed, women’s rights are among the first to be revoked in times of war or crisis. The co-chair system in Rojava exists within a women’s revolution, with all it’s supports, educations and shared goals.
The co-chair system aims to reshape social and political structures with a mentality of communality and women’s liberation. Through this, a free life in which all genders are liberated from patriarchy is built.
2 Autonomous Organisation: the network of life.
The autonomous organizing of women, within the negotiation process, is currently being discussed primarily in relation to the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ). But in fact, it applies to all areas of life where the women’s revolution fights for concrete changes. From economy and politics to knowledge, from defense to the organization of neighborhoods: Women in Rojava organize autonomously and develop their collective voice, with which they shape the entire societal process.
This is not about sectarianism, but on the contrary. In the understanding that gender liberation creates the basis of a liberated society, the autonomous framework bears a great responsibility for the entire society. It is the responsibility to develop free thought and free will in order to lead the revolutionary social transformation from which all genders benefit.
In this way, the principle of autonomy is also a mechanism of self-defense, primarily of relationships among women against patriarchal divisions, and of the organizational strength of the entire women’s revolution.
– Defending Women is Defending Society: Autonomy of Self-defense forces.
During the Arab Spring, after the popular uprisings of 2011 and the start of the civil war in Syria, the people of Rojava, still under the control of the Ba’ath regime, began to organize themselves in different areas, seeing an opportunity to bring about revolution. Where were the women?
In the words of a YPJ commander: “With the start of the revolution, it can be said, that the Kurdish people and Kurdish women were at the forefront. (…) And with the creation of the YPJ, with the Rojava revolution, we saw that we could not only be supportive, but that we were an organizational force.”
The formation of the YPJ was announced on 4th April 2013. Since then, the YPJ has become known throughout the world, for the courage and determination they have shown liberating the territories taken by ISIS and resisting the invasion of the Turkish army and its jihadist gangs. As their name ‘Women’s Protection Units’ indicates, the YPJ’s main task is to defend women. This is not limited to armed defense against a tangible enemy, but includes a broad and holistic expression of women’s self-defense around the world. The YPJ demonstrates that women, wherever they are, have the capacity and the right to defend themselves collectively, and thus to defend their land, their people and their societies.
During all these years of on-going revolution, the whole society has organized itself according to the commune system, in which everyone can find a role. This does not change during war time, in fact, the commune system often becomes stronger in time of crisis as people take up more initiative and responsibility in terms of defense.
An important example of civilian forces are the HPC-Jin: Hêzen Parastina Cewherî -Jin,Women’s Societal Defense Forces, that exists in Rojava since more than ten years. They are not part of the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), like the YPJ are, and are composed by young and elderly women, organising the defense of the life: the defense of the society in their neighborhoods.
The more the population participates in the life of the communes, committees, councils or other institutions and takes organising life into their own hands, the more people can understand what it means to stay and defend while the their land is attacked with violent wars. Since the beginning, this process was led by women.
“They shouldn’t think that we women will break;
we women don’t break.
We will always resist, and we will live!”
– Autonomous women’s HPC bataillon, Qamişlo, Korniş district, named after Şehid Ayaz Çiya and created during active war in January 2026.
– The Ancient Seed of Communality: Autonomy in the Cooperative Economy.
Democratic communal economy frees life from the logic of exploitation of humans, land and resources. Economy cannot be disconnected from communality, and has also never been in history. In the Autonomous Administration, economy is a complex field, as it must constantly deal with many obstacles, imposed embargoes, scarcity of resources, inflation and the ravages of war. The Turkish state has often used fundamental resources, like the supply of water, as weapons against the society by damming rivers and destroying important infrastructure.
The main economic activity within the DAANES is based on agriculture and livestock farming. It’s important to keep in mind, that for forty years the policies of the Baath regime imposed a model of intensive monocultural agriculture on Rojava. Villagers and farmers had to adhere to strict production plans imposed by the regime, betraying the principles of nature, like the circle of seasons, diversity and ecological life. This led to a poor industrial development, enormous ecological damage and a huge loss of ancient seeds and knowledge. This situation has created impoverishment, not only in terms of techniques, but also in terms of nutrition and therefore health: in the long term, this too is a genocidal attack.
For millennium, Kurdish women were the heart of agriculture in their communities. They saved seeds, as well as ancient knowledge, in order to collectively organize farming practices. Their agricultural knowledge was not simply technical; it was thoroughly cultural, spiritual, and ecological. Especially, a communal knowledge was created and protected.
The questions that needed answering was how to reclaim this culture, mentality and way of production and bring it back into life?
The communal economic system is the proposal and it’s main organizational form are cooperatives. With the creation of structures such as the Women’s Economic Committee, professional educational programs for women and concrete job opportunities have been created. This does not aim individual economic emancipation but instead, in the form of cooperatives, allow the problem to be tackled at its roots.
In the words of the Kurdish saying: “The seed of freedom grows only in shared soil”.
In overcoming the economical dependency of women, as well as economical oppression, autonomous women’s cooperatives have been built up and has strengthened the self-confidence of women in the economic field.
One of many autonomous women’s cooperatives is the “Kooperatifa Demsala Jinê – Women’s Season Cooperative” in Hasekeh, which produces preserved goods, like pickled and dried vegetables, sweets, jams and sauces. 7 Women work together and organize themselves. The youngest carries the responsibility of the leadership of the cooperative: “we are leading ourselves”, she says proudly. Building up an autonomous women’s cooperative, while in the whole world the capitalist system is oppressing society – and especially women – through economy, is a struggle itself:
“Salaries fluctuate, because it’s a cooperative, and that’s why many of the women left. Those who stay do so out of conviction. Working in a self-organized cooperative has changed our lives and our thinking. We meet once a week and discuss everything together.”
– Leadership of Kooperatifa Demsala Jinê, Hasekeh
– Building Justice Through Communal Life: Women’s Justice System
Even before the Rojava Revolution, women began to develop their own system of social justice, based on the principles of mediation and restoration. Today in the Autonomous Administration there is a general justice system on the one hand and a women’s justice system on the other. The latter is made up of different structures, ranging from cells called Mala Jin (Women’s House) to the entire body, the Women’s Justice Council.
The Mala Jin is present in the neighborhoods as a place for women that experience violence to seek support. The aim of the Mala Jin is to solve the problems though mediation processes, in which all parts of the conflict are heard and the opportunity is given to transform the social conflict and find a holistic solution.
“Before the beginning of the revolution, society solved its problems on its own, but the role of women was minimal, that is, men usually sat down and decided everything. There was a Ministry of Justice of the Baath regime, but people did not turn to the state. They said: “We solve the problems of society by ourselves”. But what happened? They didn’t take women’s rights into account, they were older and judged by habit. Then, when the revolution began, women appeared like the eruption of a volcano. Because of the family, because the looting and the killings, because of the love for the revolution, this all made the women angry. And what did this anger lead to? They could no longer live as before. They could no longer accept the way men did justice.”
– Heval Newroz, Women’s Justice Council
Another important achievements of the women’s revolution are in fact the women’s laws, created already in 2014 from a proposal of the Women’s Justice Council. Among other things, these laws prohibit child and arranged marriages, polygamy, honor killings, and violence against women.
Laws are important to give a general and official frame, but their implementation should be adapted to the rhythms of society, as they must be understood and accepted by society. In fact, these laws were drafted with the intention of encouraging the development of ethics, with a focus on education and debate, so that people themselves reject practices that are attacking women and society.
Women getting to know themselves and their strength, demanding their rights and putting their struggles forward, had deep impacts in the whole society of Rojava in the last 15 years of the Revolution.
Through women leading processes of social transformation, also their husbands, fathers and sons became responsible to reflect on relationships and behavior. This also brings to the men the opportunity to free themselves, find new forms of social life and identities, from which all genders benefit. This is of course a never ending process.
“We all know, that the women in the Euphrates region have long suffered under the worst forms of injustice and enslavement and from patriarchal mentality. In the moment, we cannot say at all, that we are completely liberated from the male mentality and injustice, which is aimed against women. We have not solved all the needed issues. But we can say, that we reached a simple part of it.” – Maryam Ibrahim, spokesperson of the Women’s Administration of Raqqa, in Blooming in the Desert (Argentieri, 2020)
– Free communal Life: Jinwar, the Women’s Village.
The women’s village Jinwar, is a place where women live together with their children. Each of them has a story that has led her there. Some of the women came to the village after loosing their husband, others came to develop themselves in an all women’s village. For some, taking the step of coming to Jinwar meant a break with violent relationships and patriarchal family structures, coming after experiencing violence in their families.
The village life is self organized in a democratic and communal structure, self-sufficient through agriculture and handcraft projects and the women develop themselves thought education, as well as the children in the school of the village.
Jinwar is a holistic project, which seeks to embrace all areas of the DAANES policy proposal. The village has about 45 houses made of clay in the traditional manner of the region. In the center there is a large communal kitchen. There is a primary school, a women’s academy and the Şîfa Jin (women’s healing) health center, a bakery, and agricultural fields in the village.
A place like this, a completely autonomous space, is a space of strength for the whole women’s revolution.
– From women’s bodies, to Women’s Health centers and natural medicine
In the field of health, one of the important achievements of women’s work, is the recovery and expansion of knowledge about natural medicine and holistic healing methods.
Health is the mirror of the society and, therefore of the oppression we suffer, especially as women. To build a healthy society, conscious and free relationships are needed. Being aware of one’s own existence, of one’s own body, establishing a loving relationship with one’s body and with the surrounding environment is a very important form of self-defense. Self-defense in a biological sense, to be able to take care of your body, but also in a mental or relational sense, to overcome the alienation women feel towards their body.
The “Şifa Jin – Women’s Healing”- center, located in the women’s village Jinwar, is one of the places in Rojava where natural medicine is practiced. Alongside rooms for treatments and consultations, there is also a garden, where medicinal herbs are cultivated. The goal is to collect and revive traditional natural healing knowledge, and to combine it with modern medical knowledge and treatment methods. Healthcare is given in a holistic understanding of the connection between social and mental factors in the development of illnesses, as many illnesses are caused by patriarchal social structures, violence, stress, conditions of war, displacement, and poverty. A particular focus is on raising women’s awareness of their own bodies and the causes of their pain in order to strengthen their self-determination and find solutions.
One of the centers specialties, is to support women during pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare. Much of the collected knowledge, comes from older women, which they have been taught by their mothers and grandmothers. Reviving the knowledge about the women’s body and reproduction, that has been violently taken in history, is a concrete form of resistance against the attacks on women of the ruling patriarchal system.
3 Becoming oneself through Knowledge and Education
In schools and universities of the world, women’s realities are excluded in history lessons. We learn history as a line of rulers and wars, without connecting to the reality of life of the society, and especially of women. Also in the science of the human body, the patriarchal norm, the white, male body, is taught.
The way students learn within the academies in the Autonomous Administration differs greatly from conventional education centers and universities. Being alienated from our history, from our bodies and our truth, the whole society, and especially women, find themselves through knowledge.
In the schools and universities of Rojava, the curriculum is based on a reflection of the power of knowledge. In fact, it’s a curriculum, taught in the mother tongue of every child, that leads to finding oneself as a self-conscious being, instead of alienating children and youth through quantitative knowledge.
Through initiatives of the women’s movement, education became also a part of the life in neighborhoods, as well as integral component of the work life in institutions. Through education, women develop themselves and their skills, connect to their history and gain strength and confidence. With this the base for mental transformation is being built.
– Jineolojî: the science of the revolution
As the science of women and life, Jineolojî has become deep roots for the women’s movement. Producing knowledge in the frame of the revolution, Jineolojî is a science connected to the need of society and women to know themselves, to understand life and not, as most sciences, to produces knowledge in the need of systems and rulers, bringing alienation to the people.
Through research and ideological work, the understanding of the contradiction of gender, which is the basis of our freedom struggle and social transformation, has been deepened. The hidden parts of history, as the mother goddesses and their values, the long chain of women’s resistance, the witches and their truth about reproduction and life, are recovered and spread.
How did human being become so alienated from nature and themselves?
How did men and women become so estranged from each other?
How did violence become such an untamed force in our world?
Answering these questions, brings us closer to developing a way of reconnection to nature, being human in a moral and political society and developing true friendship and love between all genders.
To counter capitalist modernity joint analyses and holistic perspectives are needed, to rethink ethics, communality, social justice, self-defense, politics, ecology, economics, organizational systems as much as love and political, revolutionary friendship: hevaltî.
Jineolojî tells us who we are and really reminds us, why we are “Women Defend(ing) Rojava” and why the achievements and principles of the Women’s Revolution.
The Women’s revolution of Rojava has made incredible achievements. Now is the time to defend them!
