An article in the Wall Street Journal today stated "A third of Kurdish Fighters are Women, Defying Mideast Attitudes and Altering Kurdish Sociatey."

These Kurdish women are training and fighting on the front lines against the Islamic State and having success. It is such a total departure for the role women play in the Middle East. They have joined for many reasons but mostly to fight an extremist regime that "...has reinstituted slavery, prohibited women from working and threatened to kill those Muslims, including Kurds, who don’t adhere to their ideology."

This war is alterting people's beliefs. A woman who is part of an all female brigade said “After this, I can’t imagine leading a life of a traditional Kurdish woman, caring for a husband and children at home,” she said. “I used to want that before this war.”

I admire these women for their bravery. Not only for picking up a gun and risking their lives but for defying their society's traditions. Now that women are in the fight, I know they will win.