Muslim Mothers in Ground Combat Against the Islamic State

• Published date: 01 April 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17699568
• Date: 01 April 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Muslim Mothers in

Ground Combat Against

the Islamic State:

Women’s Identities

and Social Change

in Iraqi Kurdistan

Marco Nilsson

1

Abstract

This study analyzes the experiences and identities of Kurdish women fighting the

Islamic State (IS) in northern Iraq as part of the Peshmerga Army. The case is

especially interesting because these women have engaged in ground combat and

because there is an empirical gap in knowledge, especially concerning Muslim

women’s experiences as soldiers. Wars bring great destruction but can also catalyze

social change. While seeking balance between their identities as good mothers and

professional soldiers, many Kurdish women see their war participation as a chance

to increase their agency and improve equality in society, as combat operations

create a window of opportunity to change perceptions of women’s roles. Women

soldiers still face prejudices and feel that they must prove their worth as fearless

warriors in ground combat. However, interviewed soldiers said that they were not

striving for equality but equivalency, stressing those qualities that women in par-

ticular can contribute in battle.

Keywords

gender issues, military organization, Islam, Kurdistan, social change, IS

1

Global Studies, Jo

¨nko

¨ping University, Jo

¨nko

¨ping, Sweden

Corresponding Author:

Marco Nilsson, Global Studies, Jo

¨nko

¨ping University, Box 1026, 55111 Jo

¨nko

¨ping, Sweden.

Email: marco.nilsson@ju.se

Armed Forces & Society

2018, Vol. 44(2) 261-279

ªThe Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17699568

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In recent times, women have played prominent combat roles in many guerilla

movements, such as the National Liberation Front (FNL) in Vietnam, Sendero

Luminoso in Peru, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka, Fara-

bundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador, and Kurdistan

Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey. Female insurgents comprised about 30%of com-

batants in the Peruvian, Salvadoran, and Sri Lankan insurgencies and about 25%in

the Sierra Leone insurgency (Mason, 1992, p. 250; Wood, 2008, p. 539). Moreover,

women were “the backbone” of the FMLN during the civil war in El Sa lvador

(Viterna, 2013, p. 145), and 14%of PKK militants killed in battle have been women

(Tezcu

¨r, 2016).

In regular armies, gender roles have been much slower to change, although great

wars in particular have historically increased women’s participation in the military.

During World War I (WWI), Western nations relied on women in various support

roles. In Russia, up to 6,000 women were combatants, specifically in the “Women’s

Battalion of Death” in WWI (Beatty, 1918, p. 112), and hundreds of thousands were

later recruited to the Red Army in the Soviet Union (Alexiyevich, 1988). Starting in

the 1970s, coupled with general improvements in gender equality, many Western

countries also started to admit women to their armed forces (Carreiras, 2006).

However, many countries still view women soldiers as the exception rather than

the rule, mostly keeping ground combat beyond their reach.

A possible reason for these restrictions and for downplaying women’s contribu-

tions is that women have traditionally been seen as those needing protec tion as

victims of warfare, rather than as those doing the protecting (Keegan, 1993, pp.

76, 226). Women have frequently been represented as spoils of war (Kennedy-Pipe,

2000, p. 34), and rape has been a widely used weapon of war targeting women

(Eriksson Baaz & Stern, 2009, 2013; Hirschauer, 2014), sometimes even forming

the basis for unit cohesion in armed groups (Cohen, 2016).

Despite a growing literature on women soldiers (e.g., Brownson, 2014; Dar &

Kimhi, 2004; DeGroot, 2000; Eriksson Baaz & Stern, 2012; Meytal, 2011; Sasson-

Levy, 2003; Viterna, 2013; Wood, 2008), there is a knowledge gap concerning both

Kurdish and Muslim women’s experiences as soldiers. This study analyzes the

experiences and identities of Muslim Kurdish women who fight the IS as part of

the Peshmerga Army, recognized by the Iraqi constitution as the legitimate security

forces of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq. The case is esp ecially interesting

because these women have engaged in ground combat, which is unusual for women

in regular armies even in the West, where the question of their increasing inclusion

in the military has been much debated.

Feminists positions on the relationship between women and the military have

generally fallen into two distinct camps. Difference feminism has argued against

integrating women in the military, emphasizing women’s purported caring nature or

commitment to nonviolence (Carroll & Hall, 1993; Fuentes, 1992; Ruddick, 1980;

Swerdlow, 1989). Moreover, radical feminists have held that combat is fundamental

to male superiority (Enloe, 1983, p. 13; Feinman, 2000, pp. 19–31) and that efforts to

262 Armed Forces & Society 44(2)