Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
Amanda Jessen MA Candidate, Conflict Resolution Gender and Conflict Resolution May 9, 2013
Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
Introduction A surge in recent scholarship has shown the degree to which women have been differentially impacted by conflict in their respective regions. Scholars such as Caroline Moser have worked tirelessly to document the ways in which conflict has differently and disproportionately touched women’s lives as compared to men in the same space. Called to revise agency policy to better attend to these differences, various aid agencies around the world (e.g. USAID, DFID, CIDA, SIDA), have responded in different degrees to the need to account for gender differences, nuances, and manifestations in programming. Part of this surge in scholarship has focused on how women around the world have been and should be increasingly able to effect peace processes in post-‐conflict environments. Where comparative analyses of women building peace have been articulated1, important key themes and lessons learned have emerged to inform and apply pressure to similar processes unfolding in recently ended conflict zones. Less is known, though, about why women join armed resistance movements in the first place. Relatively new is the idea of combatants who choose to take up arms to defend a particular cause or political agenda. Even newer is the female combatant who utilizes terrorist violence to achieve political ends. There are, indeed, case studies of various insurgencies that have included female combatants2, but there is no dedicated research that comparatively analyzes paths to armed combat that women take in different spaces 1 Sanam Anderlini. Women Building Peace: What They Do, What It Matters. London: Lynne Rienner. 2007.
2 Keith Stanski. “Terrorism, Gender, and Ideology: A Case Study of Women who Join the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia.” The Making of a Terrorist: Recruitment, Training, and Root Causes vol. 1. James Forest (ed.). 2005. 1
Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
and at different times. While some have suggested that women have joined armed forces for ideological, patriotic, or religious reasons3, no two case studies have been analyzed side-‐by-‐side to consider the full range of possibilities that explain why women become combatants. This paper aims to plug this specific hole in the current body of research around women, gender, and conflict by considering possible explanations for how and why Chechen and Kurdish women come to bear arms for their respective campaigns for independence. Scope of Inquiry This paper will contribute to the burgeoning dialogue on the ways in which women impact conflict settings by comparing two case studies of insurgencies that prominently feature female combatants in order to look for similarities, gaps in the available literature, and overall guiding themes. In looking comparatively at the Black Widow fighters of Chechnya and female fighters in the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) of southern/southeastern Turkey, this paper hopes to develop valuable insight into the reasons that motivate women to volunteer to fight rather than the reasons official state actors and/or outsiders claim motivate women to fight. Part of this analysis will necessarily involve a literature review of the available material dedicated to understanding the paths these women take to fight; within these literature reviews, the author will point out weaknesses or vulnerabilities in arguments using a gender lens as a guiding force. Following a description of each case -‐ including a brief overview of the conflict that has given rise to each insurgency -‐ and a comparative analysis of the available content, this paper will reflect on how operative
3 Tsjeard Bouta, Georg Frerks, Ian Bannon. Gender, Conflict, and Development. Washington, DC: World Bank;
2005, p. 12. 2
Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
gender assumptions and expectations have shaped the conversation centered on why women fight. The paper will conclude with a discussion dedicated the considerations conflict resolution practitioners must make in order to thoughtfully address female combatants in peacebuilding exercises. This paper will stop short of making policy recommendations, but seeks to provide context and important points about women who fight for policymakers and researchers who take this inquiry further. Further, it is important to note that women function as suicide bombers in both the Chechen and Kurdish cases, but unlike the Chechen case, women are also regular recruits in the PKK. There may be some merit to the argument that comparing suicide bombers to regular recruits presents something of an asymmetrical exercise; this paper responds by suggesting that regardless of the methods or tactics employed to achieve a violent political goal, both suicide bombers and female recruits who fight knowing that they might die but not necessarily with that notion as an overriding goal enlist out of a sense that violent political action is the best method to achieve their stated goals. In this sense, there is likely some motivational and ideological parity between suicide bombers and female recruits, but this will be explored at greater length throughout the paper. Gender and Conflict – Common Themes Some key themes that are of interest to the scope of this paper include female involvement in war, a practice that, in general, is characterized by normative gender categories4 in which women are bystanders or victims and men are participants and victors.
4 Nino Kemoklidze. “Victimization of Female Suicide Bombers: The Case of Chechnya.”
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Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
Underpinning these gender norms are the operative assumptions that men are inherently more aggressive and women are inherently more peaceful, thus adding a biological determinism to mainstream historical accounts of women, men, and conflict. Bouta et al. argues that women who join armed forces tend to occupy three different roles: combatant, supporter, and dependent, whereas men traditionally occupy the role of combatant.5 Gender (and gendered expectations) has further complicated scenarios in which both men and women participate in armed conflict in the sense that it drives how both men and women yield violence to dominate the enemy. In cases where systematic rape is employed to subjugate and weaken the enemy, both men and women are targeted by the perpetrating other, although an overwhelming amount of literature has tended to focus only on cases where women have been raped during wartime. Where reports of gender-‐based violence against men have been evaluated, the social category of ethnicity functions as an additional differentiator between who has power and who does not, and who will rape to assume power and who will be raped and rendered powerless. Gender also works to shape the degree to which men and woman can access resources afforded by post-‐conflict intervention efforts. Where women are perceived to occupy support or dependent roles in an armed group, Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) programs tend to overlook the very real needs of women involved in war efforts but who may not be able to produce a weapon to prove it. Expectations of who carries the burden of armed conflict and, therefore, who should receive the lion’s share of
5 Bouta et al. p. 13.
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rehabilitation resources very often obscure the real ways in which women both participate in and are implicated by the conflict itself.6 What is specific to this paper, though, as similarities, disjunctures, and overall emergent themes that characterize the motivations of Chechen and Kurdish women to take up arms are explored, will be points related to the pre-‐conflict roles of Chechen and Kurdish women. It will be critical to examine and understand how women functioned in their respective gendered spaces prior to the outbreak of conflict and look at these pre-‐war roles and responsibilities side-‐by-‐side with what these women seek to achieve through participation in insurgent movements. In other words, how women arming themselves undermines, supports, or extends pre-‐war roles and responsibilities will function as a strong point of analytical departure. Conflict in Chechnya -‐ A Brief Overview Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Dzhokhar Dudayev won the popular Chechen vote and declared Chechnya independent of Russia. Three years later, Russian troops invaded Chechnya in an effort to quell the independence movement during the subsequent 20-‐month war that followed. After Dudayev was killed and replaced by Zemlikhan Yandarbiyev, efforts to establish peace been Yandarbiyev and then-‐president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin were made but lasted only 3 months before Chechen rebels staged violent attacks on Russian officials set up in Grozny, the Chechen capital. What is referred to as the First Russo-‐Chechen War lasted from 1994-‐1996 and resulted in a victory for Chechens as they successfully uprooted the 6 Bouta et al., p. 18.
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Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
Russian presence from their territory.7 A series of high-‐level kidnappings and unstable truces characterized the years between 1996 and 1999 until Chechen leader Maskhadov declared that Islamic Shari-‐ah law would be implemented over a 3-‐year span. Grozny moved away from Russian control until Russian President Vladimir Putin regained control of the city through a brutal and overwhelming military occupation and announced direct-‐ rule of the Chechen territory in 2000. From 2000 to late-‐2002, Russian forces intensified counterterrorism tactics that Collins argues resulted in the near-‐collapse of the insurgency.8 Shortly after Moscow’s announcement, Akhmat Kaydrov was appointed by the Kremlin to administer Chechnya. On-‐again, off-‐again violence erupted throughout the country, but paled in comparison to the 2002 Chechen seizure of a Moscow theatre where 800 people were held hostage, 120 of them dying as a result of Russian attempts to secure the theatre. In the early 2000s, suicide bombings began to take a serious toll on Russian military and government targets and tensions remained high. Perhaps the most appalling episode of the Russian-‐Chechen conflict occurred when terrorists linked to Chechen separatist fighters took control of an elementary school in Beslan, North Ossetia and killed over 380 people, most of whom were children. The intense violence of 2008 slowly moderated, and in April of 2009, Russia declared that the counterterrorism campaign against Chechen separatists was over, but, to this day, Chechen rebels continue to organize for a free Chechnya.
7 Jeff Collins. “Explaining Chechnya’s ‘Black Widows’: An Organisational Analysis”. The GW Post Research
Paper. March 2012, p. 4. 8 Ibid, p. 6.
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Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
“The Black Widows” – Women Who Fight For Chechen Independence Beginning in early 2000, Chechen women loyal to the pro-‐independence insurgency began volunteering to commit suicide attacks against Russian forces. The first female suicide attack, initiated by Khava Barayeva and Luisa Magomadova started what would be waves of female suicide attacks on key Russian personnel, military installations, and civilian hot spots. Termed the “Black Widows” by the Russian press, these women have captured the attention of media outlets, academics, and worried government officials eager to neatly explain the various motivations driving women to engage in political violence as a means to develop counterterrorist strategies to undercut their effectiveness. To better examine how Chechen women have come to represent close to 50% of the demographic make-‐up suicide bombers9, it is first critical to examine the environment in which the conflict has taken root as well as some of the pre-‐conflict roles and responsibilities carved out for Chechen women. Nino Kemoklidze’s look at the lifestyle of people indigenous to the Caucasus argues that a pre-‐Soviet tribal system called teipy institutionalized a practice of bridal exchanges of women that concretized political and economic ties between tribes. Even under Soviet direct rule, many of the indigenous customs and expectations persisted as instructive and proscriptive components of Chechen culture. Women were also wholly confined to the domestic sphere and virtually absent from participation in any public space.10 9 Anne Speckhard and Khapta Akhmedova. “The Black Widows: The Chechen Female Suicide Terrorists.” p.
63.
10 Nino Kemoklidze. “Victimisation of Female Suicide Bombers – the Case of Chechnya”. Caucasian Review of
International Affairs Vol. 3 (2). Spring 2009, p. 184. 7
Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
What, then, is the basis of the process or processes that supported women in moving from the confines of the domestic space to what is perhaps the most public space available for a political actor (i.e. the theatre of war)? Several academics have taken stabs at explaining the motivations of women for killing others and themselves on behalf of the Chechen cause. These explanations will be explored in the next section. Literature Review: Motivations for Chechen Women Fighting to Die Perhaps the most prolific attempt to explain why Chechen women take up arms comes from Anne Speckhard and Khapta Akhmedova, who attempt to draw generalizations across all 47 cases of female suicide bombers who were either successful in or attempted to detonate themselves or vehicles to inflict widespread damage on Russian physical and human capital. Essentially, the authors argue that pervasive and widespread experience of trauma, loss, and grievance has exerted the strongest “push” influence over women who have radicalized in the fight against Russian claims to Chechen territory. The authors assert that ...all individuals within the sample had experienced deep personal traumatization, and evidence of symptoms of post-‐traumatic stress disorder and dissociative phenomena as a result of direct personal traumatization were present in the entire sample.... this...was very likely one of the deepest leading motivational factors that drew the Chechen bombers in embracing terrorism ideologies, and ultimately, terrorist acts.”
Essentially, because these women personally witnessed the death or abuse of family members at the hand of Russians, the “unresolved grief” stemming from the episode(s) created fertile ground for the radicalizing effects of a violent vision of Islamic justice. 11 11 Ibid, p. 66.
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Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
The authors further suggest that access to revenge afforded by jihadist calls to suicide missions fit neatly within traditional Chechen norms of seeking revenge for harm done within tribes or family units. In addition, calls to join a jihadist community by killing oneself to further a political goal, and thereby assuring one’s and one’s family’s place in heaven, afforded women without families an opportunity to plug into a supportive network. 12 Other commentators, like Jeff Collins and Nabi Abdullaev, take a more organization-‐ centered approach to explaining how women have come to assume such high numbers of suicide bombers. In his analysis, Collins suggests that a combination of the effectiveness of suicide attacks; Russian counter-‐terrorist policies; and the fragmentation of the Chechen resistance are more salient drivers of the increasing utilization of women as suicide bombers. Most notable, he sees the Russian crackdown on Chechen forces from 2000 – 2002 as the watershed moment in which it became more tactically compelling and strategically feasible for women to continue the waves of terrorist violence, as much of what Russian forces were accustomed to look for revolved around the notion of the “dark-‐ skinned male” as the potential bomber. Because of this, women were able to more freely maneuver into high-‐profile spaces than men, making them the obvious choice for evolving the campaign. 13 Secondly, Collins argues that female suicide bombers were the better strategic choice in terms of garnering international attention for the Chechen cause. Echoing other observers’ point that female suicide attackers capture 8 times the media coverage than their male
12 Ibid, p. 69.
13 Collins, p. 7.
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Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
counterparts14, Collins assesses that a hallmark of Chechen organizational genius was the use of female bombers to more sharply focus the world’s attention on the plight of Chechens living under the harsh rule of the Russians. In his rebuttal of the “trauma” argument behind Chechen women radicalizing to support political violence, Abdullaev argues that the organization under which Chechen women were constituents overrode any individual agency of the female participants themselves. “...there is an organization behind the attacks, which capitalizes on the bombers’ grievances and channels them strategically.”15 Ultimately, it is the Chechens’ use of women to generate “cheap but sensational warfare” that cuts to the Russian quick in a way that men dying in the public eye does not that forms the most compelling basis for how women came to occupy these strategic roles. Mia Bloom, in her seminal look at women who become suicide bombers, puts forth the argument that women may pursue otherwise socially unsanctioned means to effect violence as a way to fundamentally challenge pre-‐conflict gender norms and expectations. Bloom acknowledges that the notion that through violence, women may be able to achieve empowerment, is one possible motivator behind the Black Widow’s decision to kill. In addition, Bloom is the only author to seriously consider the notion that women join armed groups in order to goad men into doing more to advance a political agenda. She cites the
14
15 “Nabi
Abdullaev. “Unraveling the Chechen “Black Widows”. Agentura.Ru Studies and Research Center. Online. Available at studies.agentura.ru/english/library/suicide/. 10
Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
Chechen propagandist slogan that reads: “Women’s courage is a disgrace to that of modern men”16 as evidence of this strategy. Conflict in Turkey – A Brief Overview In 1978, Marxist activist Abdullah Öcalan took control of the nascent Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). Initially, the goal was to kick-‐start a revolution that would result in the liberation of the Kurdish people and the establishment of an independent Kurdish state. In the early 1980s, efforts were focused on consolidating a popular base and readying human and material resources for a long-‐lasting, low-‐intensity campaign targeting the Turkish state. Beginning in 1984, the PKK initiated the first stages of its campaign in the Anatolian regions of Turkey, targeting government facilities and personnel, as well as Kurdish civilians perceived to be collaborating with the “enemy”. Sometime in the mid-‐1908s, the PKK evolved its ideological underpinnings away from a Marxist/leftist orientation to more emphatically embracing tenets of Islam and pushing for greater cultural, economic and political rights for Kurdish Turks. In 1999, the PKK received a major blow when Öcalan was arrested in Kenya and extradited to Turkey for sentencing. Communicating with his base from prison, Öcalan declared a unilateral ceasefire and pressured new leadership to move the PKK into the direction of seeking peace initiatives with the Turkish government.
16 Citing Dimitri Sudakov in Pravda. Mia Bloom. “Female Suicide Bombers: A Global Trend.” December 2006.
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Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
Despite vows to pursue peace and renaming the organization to the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress (KADEK) and the Kurdistan People’s Congress (KGK) in what Turkish authorities call a sophisticated public relations campaign, ongoing violence has characterized the early 2000s.17 Most recently, sources intimate with both the Turkish government and PKK leaders have leaked news that both sides have engaged in high-‐level (and secret) peace negotiations in Oslo. Two months ago, three Kurdish activists, including co-‐founder Sakine Cansiz, were shot to death in Paris.18 Female Fighters in the PKK Women have been fighting with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party since its inception in the late-‐70s. Formed as a Marxist response to an increasingly capitalistic Turkish state, the founder of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, wrote early on that any hope for a successful revolution rested squarely on the group’s commitment to gender equality.19 According to the same CNN report, for Kurdish women living in southern/eastern Turkey, joining the PKK offers up an opportunity to do something different as women living within oppressed communities. In terms of the roles Kurdish women fulfill in the PKK, some are counted among the group’s top leadership -‐ like the recently deceased Sakine Cansiz, who fought with the PKK since it
17 National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. “Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK)”. University of Maryland. Online. Available at http://www.start.umd.edu/start/data_collections/tops/terrorist_organization_profile.asp?id=63. 18 AlJazeera. “Timeline: PKK conflict with Turkey.” Online. Available at http://www.aljazeera.com/news /europe/2013/03/2013320652845642.html. March 21, 2013. 19 Arwa Damon. “Female fighters: We won’t stand for male dominance”. CNN. Online. Available at edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/10/06/Iraq.pkk. 12
Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
formed in the 70s20 – while others fight with the rest of the rank-‐and-‐file. The PKK is an organization that has conducted suicide campaigns against Turkish targets, and, like the Chechen case, female PKK fighters have killed themselves and others to further the group’s political agenda.21 In addition, women occupy top leadership positions in the pro-‐Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) that is sometimes viewed as the political arm of the PKK. Before assessing the various ways in which women come to fight for the PKK, it is helpful to look at the realities of Kurdish women living within the Turkish state. Tuija Saarinen writes that traditional Kurdish customs offer a strong sense of identity to women through the institution of marriage alone. Unmarried women are not considered fully-‐grown adults, and women who are not married are essentially unable to support themselves economically. Acceptable behavior for Kurdish girls and women is narrow in terms of where they are allowed to go and how they are permitted to dress and socialize. 22 Literature Review: Motivations for Kurdish Women Fighting to Die Unlike the disagreement over the motivations cited for why Chechen women join the resistance, there seems to be considerable agreement among commentators interested in explaining the reasons that motivate Kurdish women to fight. In reviewing press articles that deal directly with female PKK combatants23, almost all women who are directly quoted
20 Jenna Krajeski. “Kurdistan’s Female Fighters”. The Atlantic. January 30th 2013. Online. Available at
www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/01/kurdistans-‐female-‐fighters/272677/. 21 R. Kim Cragin (ed.). Women as Terrorists: Mothers, Recruiters, and Martyrs. Praeger. 2009, p. 66. 22 Tuija Saarinen. “General cultural differences and stereotypes: Kurdish family culture and customs.” Online.
Available at wanda.uef.fi/tkk/liferay/projektit/monikko/translations/eng/Kurdilainen-‐perhe-‐ja-‐ tapakulttuuri-‐eng.pdf. 23 Please see Patrick Markey and Isabel Coles. “Insight: Hopes, suspicions over peace in Kurdish rebel hideout”. Reuters. March 27th, 2013. Online. Available at www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/27/us-‐iraq-‐ turkey-‐pkk-‐insight-‐idUSBRE92Q0J520130327; Damon, 2008; and, Yesim Yaprak Yildiz. “The Kurdish women 13
Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
by the authors state that the freedom of movement, expression, and respect granted to female combatants far outweighs the benefits of living as civilians in Kurdish communities. One fighter is quoted as saying, “In our society, women are not valued. I feel my place and my value here more.” In addition, it is common to hear female PKK combatants state their willingness to fight for the liberation of Kurdish peoples throughout the entire geo-‐cultural region of Kurdistan, which includes parts of Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Notions of righting unjust realities feature prominently in overall justification for fighting. In terms of Kurdish women’s experiences living in Turkey, the narrative of ethnically oriented exclusion is a central theme that runs throughout. “That’s when I realized we Kurds were alone, victims of ethnic injustice.”24 This sense of loneliness through both ethnic exclusion and gender-‐based exclusion is a major component that drives women to seek freedom through fighting. Perhaps the most insightful illustration of how Kurdish women come to see themselves as ripe for battle comes from Jenna Krajeski, writing for the Atlantic. Here we see that social protests during the 1990s served as a bridge for women seeking greater participation in the Kurdish struggle.25 The protests acted as a kind of catalyzing force, the first big step that Kurdish women took out of their domestic roles and into the public. There is a certain feminism present in the political narratives of women joining the PKK, reflecting a group consciousness rooted in the shared experience of gender-‐based discrimination. In this who take up arms: Turkey and the PKK”. BBC Turkish. January 20th, 2013. Online. Available at www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2013/turkey4456.htm. 24 Boris Mabillard. “Women of the PKK: Fighting for Kurdish Rights and Gender Equality.” Le Temps/Worldcrunch. March 22, 2013. Online. Available at worldcrunch.com/world-‐affairs/women-‐of-‐the-‐ pkk-‐fighting-‐for-‐kurdish-‐rigths-‐and-‐gender-‐equality/pkk-‐kurds-‐women-‐soldiers-‐feminism-‐ ocalan/c1s11243/#.UXA... 25 Krajeski, 2013. 14
Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
sense, perhaps becoming political actors first worked to propel women into becoming armed combatants later. Krajeski also notes that Kurdish women have joined the PKK to escape poverty.26 Reflecting back on Saarinen’s account of some of the cultural restrictions imposed on Kurdish women, it is important to note that the realities of limited access to education and income generation could be effective motivators for women who see the promise of egalitarianism and intellectualism in the PKK. “In the mountains, men and women study together, everything from Öcalan’s writings to music to weapons training. They eat together and, when it comes time, fight together.” It seems that participation in the PKK offers Kurdish women an opportunity to remove themselves from a reality in which there are few options for self-‐determination. The Black Widows vs. the Female PKK – Comparisons, Gaps in the Literature, and Gender Considerations In both cases, commentators offer a garden-‐variety of reasons that seek to explain why Chechen and Kurdish women fight. What is immediately glaring, in a comparative sense, is the degree to which women’s voices are missing in the Chechen case. Almost all of the available counts of why Chechen women decide to fight are written from the perspective of either males intimately involved in the Russian-‐Chechen conflict or outsiders to the conflict itself. The degree to which suicide bombers must remain out of the spotlight until the final moments of their mission may explain the dearth in female personal narrative, but
26 Ibid.
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regardless of why women’s voices are absent from the literature, the absence alone creates a major gap in any understanding of personal motivations to fight. In addition, in both cases the state media have tried in earnest to paint female fighters as deranged, evil, brutish, psychotic, and victims of coercive measures like rape and forced intoxication. Some authors (and in the Kurdish case, women themselves) have pointed out the utility of demonizing or delegitimizing the women who fight, but it is interesting nonetheless to analyze the ways in which state media have manipulated the images of women as a way to either gain the upper hand or cast dubious aspersions on the rebel group as a whole. In terms of the reasons why women fight in both cases, there is a clear, undergirding desire to affect political change through active participation. In the Chechen case, this point is obscured by the commentators who focus on motivations centered on traumatization and a desire for revenge. Fighting for structural change through liberation is even more obscured by the observers who remark on how women “are utilized” by the forces with “real power” (i.e. men in positions of the leadership; the rebel group itself.) Perhaps this piece is missing in the literature because female rebels themselves have not communicated the operative and motivating forces behind their decisions to fight in the way that Kurdish women have. In their case (and in several of the articles used in this sample), female Kurdish fighters clearly and unequivocally see participation in the PKK as perhaps the only mechanism for achieving both Kurdish and female liberation. In the case of women fighting for a free Chechnya, it is particularly interesting to see how women have utilized their own commitments to the cause to motivate men to fight through 16
Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
public shaming techniques. Here, gender and gendered expectations are deliberately manipulated to draw men deeper into the struggle. Where women are seen to be occupying the traditional male role of physically defending ethnic honor, the displacement this creates can have a very real psychological impact on men who may begin to perceive themselves as incapable of defending the group’s interests. The strategy here is for women to capitalize on the male sense of shame for not fighting in order to gird them into action. This is an example of women exploiting traditional gender norms and roles for the benefit of the group, rather than undermining gender roles to further advance their own interests. In terms of PKK fighters, one comment from Krajeski’s piece reflected a notable gender consideration not mentioned in the other articles that were reviewed. She noted that PKK codes of conduct forbid men and women from engaging in any sexual activity, marriage, or child rearing.27 There is merit to the argument that these restrictions are in place to remove the distractions of love, sex, and family from the lives of fighters, but these restrictions also work to neuter the gender of the fighters involved. Sexuality in particular is a major vehicle through which the gender of one individual interacts with the gender of another. By removing sexuality as a platform from which to identify, women and men are stripped of layers of identity that would otherwise function to organize their behavior as civilians. Krajeski also notes that these restrictions play a role in securing the honor and integrity of families whose daughters are fighting alongside men.28 Implications for Conflict Resolution Programming
27 Ibid. 28 Ibid.
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Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
Conflict resolution practitioners have much to consider in cases where women voluntarily join armed resistance movements. In the case of Chechnya, conflict resolution practitioners would need to approach programming with the understanding that decades of trauma have characterized the Chechen struggle for independence. Culturally appropriate psychosocial programming will need to address the profound loss suffered by both men and women as a way to begin the healing process for affected communities. In addition, programming will need to address and seek to reverse radicalization undergone by women who have chosen violence as a path to resolving the struggle. Where there is interest in exacting revenge for grievances suffered, viable alterative mechanisms must be introduced that do not prioritize or offer violent routes to women eager to seek redress. In addition, Chechen women identified as militants must feel as though their agency is not lost by opting to disarm. Suicide missions may not be a sustainable mechanism through with to upset gender norms, but the empowerment derived from dislocating gendered expectations of social women who choose to inflict violence on sources of oppression cannot be eclipsed by programs that ignore and make invisible their social realities. In the case of the female PKK combatants (and in terms of a hypothetical peace agreement between Turkey and the PKK), any successful DDR program must account for and guarantee that Kurdish female combatants will not return to a life of restricted access to autonomy as civilians. Where these women have enjoyed access to equality through warfare, there will be no interest in disarming only to run into pre-‐war expectations of domesticity. There must be the guarantee that by disengaging from armed conflict women 18
Why Women Fight: From Chechnya to Turkish Kurdistan
will continue to enjoy equal access, political representation, and the ability to provide for themselves within their respective communities. Whether or not women should fight is not a question that this paper seeks to address. Coming down on either side of that question inherently requires a moral judgment on whether women’s roles in armed insurgency are either harmful to themselves or to their communities. But understanding why women fight and how gender operates to both obscure the conversation where outsiders and state actors are involved as well as inform women of their own decisions serves to fill in important blanks of the overall narrative of conflict. And where the conflict narrative reflects greater clarity and honesty in terms of the actors involved, conflict practitioners stand a much greater chance of meaningfully contributing to a vision of a lasting and equitable peace.
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