How to deal with religious fanatics, when they think Islamophobes are the problem? Women taking up arms is a sight not often seen which is why I have wondered the fierce opposition Kurdish women have given to ISIS and have continued to wonder why threat of ISIS has not made it so that all women under attack by ISIS do not confront these brutes with force? Women who would be defending themselves, their family members, whole of society and other women against belief that is brutal, medieval and a nonstop wave of crushing human dignity which stops people and Muslim societies from developing and keep rest of the world in fear. To rule with fear is something that has to be answered with, not by fearing but showing no fear and no respect for use of violence, violence that is obviously very normal and in use daily, a threat which hangs over women and girls all the time. To be submissive may be a virtue but in this case self-defense is acceptable and encouraged to be taken. When there is a culture of self-defense being acceptable and a human right women can feel they do not depend on others to defend them and rescue them. This goes for education and providing for oneself, standing up to oneself and speaking for human rights. It is unacceptable for women and children to have to bear a heavy burden of constant violence, loss, destruction, dictatorship, male dominance and hatred which is based on religion, in God’s name, given word and will. It is intolerable that divinity is used to make such slaughter, misery and death. It is godless. God helps those who help themselves has some truth to it. That is spirituality in action and you must have spirit. It is sad when women are made to feel helpless without means, without any say over the matter of their lives, that they are minimized into slaves that can be stolen, sold, raped and murdered on whims of men who are mentally teenagers and spiritual cavemen.  

So I ask, how do Muslim women defend themselves and I have a right to ask as the flood of refugees becomes more and more overwhelming? How does one defend one’s right to the land that ISIS and other rebels have taken over? Why ISIS is the one with arms and means to bomb everything down, slave and slaughter people as it wishes, make judgments over people’s lives and act like God was on their side only?

Women who do as men do are often ridiculed for having lost their femininity in the process when they grab a weapon. It is a little loss in comparison to what ISIS is taking from Muslim women and children. To ban women from moving anywhere without a chaperone, under rule of their fathers, brother, sons, other male relatives wearing a complete cover is surely a paralyzing factor.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mmw/2007/12/muslim-women-learning-to-defend-themselves-what-a-joke-2/”(Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath men the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great.) (An-Nisaa’ 4: 34)” http://www.protectedpearls.com/womeninislam.htm

Portrait 2015, pencil on paper