Rojava, an autonomous region in northeastern Syria, has a government with perhaps the most complete gender equality in the world, in a society fractured by conflict and misogyny. Natasha Walter explores how women in this region have forged a movement for rights and empowerment amid adversity.
Too often, it seems to me, as I hear discussions in the west of what the new Syria will look like, this impassioned feminism is completely overlooked. Maybe it’s too Kurdish. Maybe it’s too militarised. Maybe it’s too socialist. Maybe it’s just too unlikely. Maybe what western onlookers want when they think about feminism in the Middle East is something more polite, less determined, less angry? But every single day I’m in north-east Syria, whether I visit a university or a justice council, an ecology academy or a demonstration, I feel my breath taken away by the depth of commitment that women show to what they have created here.