Kurdish Women Fighters: A Path Out of Patriarchy?

Speaker: Güneş Murat Tezcür, University of Central Florida Chair: Zeynep Kaya, LSE Middle East Centre Over the last three decades, tens of thousands of women have joined the ranks of the PKK and its affiliated organisations. What factors explain their violent mobilisation despite life-threatening risks? Building on a unique dataset of more than 9,000 militant bios and in-depth interviews with the families of militants, Güneş Murat Tezcür argues that gender inequality directly influences women's decisions to take up arms, believing that doing so provides them with a path out of patriarchal gender relations. Recorded on 7 February 2018. -------------------------- Güneş Murat Tezcür is the Jalal Talabani Chair of Kurdish Political Studies at the University of Central Florida. His research focuses on political violence, social movements, and the geopolitics of the Middle East with a focus on the Kurdish question. Image credit: Kurdishstruggle, Flickr.