Throughout patriarchal history, the female body has been shaped not only as a biological entity but also as a cultural, political, and economic space. Across the world, women continue to struggle for equality in public visibility. In spheres ranging from education and healthcare to politics and the arts, women whose voices are systematically silenced and rendered invisible resist not only on an individual level but also against an erasure of subjectivity in collective memory.
Although capitalist modernity may seem to exalt women as consumers, it simultaneously seeks to control them by confining them to specific roles. Many discourses marketed as “women’s liberation” conceal new forms of domination, framing women as instruments of reproduction, display figures, or representatives of commercial brands.
**Throughout history, including in Ancient Greece, women have been systematically excluded from the public sphere and confined to the private domain. This exclusion is not merely ideological; it is also a sociological reality. In 5th century BCE Athens, the democracy established within the city-state applied only to a specific segment of the population. The “demos,” or the people, consisted of “free citizens” who could choose their rulers and govern themselves. However, this definition of a “free citizen” encompassed men who were not required to work, who had access to good education, and who could dedicate time to intellectual pursuits and engagement with the divine. Women and slaves, compelled to labor, were excluded from this definition and, consequently, deprived of political rights and citizenship status.
This historical framework demonstrates that women, pushed outside the public sphere, were systematically denied access to intellectual production, decision-making processes, and political participation. Citizenship was defined not through family ties, bloodline, or clan, but through individual identity and education—criteria that women were barred from meeting.
Today, women, long marginalized, rendered invisible, and subjected to all forms of male violence, have begun to assert themselves as founding and political subjects. The driving force behind this struggle lies in the historical power men established over women and nature—a power that continues to manifest in various forms in contemporary society.
In this context, looking back at the past—particularly Ancient Greece—is instructive for understanding historical continuities. In Ancient Greece, women were almost entirely excluded from the public sphere and barred from intellectual and political production, a restriction rooted in male-dominated thinking. Philosophers such as Aristotle and Cicero did not merely accept this exclusion; they also provided philosophical justification for it.
For instance, in Plato’s Timaeus dialogues, the gods are depicted as creating men as superior to women. Aristotle described women as “incomplete men,” and Cicero regarded female subjectivity itself as a threat, defining women’s role solely in terms of obedience to their husbands within the household. These examples demonstrate that such exclusion was not merely individual prejudice; it reflected a systematic philosophy, a social order, and a legal imagination that constructed women’s place and their limits within society.
These discourses were part of Ancient Greece and Rome’s broader exclusionary approach toward all identities defined as “other,” not just women. Consequently, these ideas did not remain confined to the intellectual sphere; they laid the foundation for the norms, rules, and boundaries that shaped women’s everyday lives.
Anarchist thinker John Zerzan explicitly states: “Philosophy is a male world.” This statement is not only historical but also an epistemological critique. As women were relegated not to produce knowledge but merely to transmit or carry it, male rationality reproduced itself while condemning the “other” to silence.
From Ancient Greece to Digital Agoras: The Continuity of Exclusion
In contemporary society, women’s clothing, fertility, visibility on social media, and life choices are continuously monitored and controlled through family, religious authorities, legal systems, and digital surveillance mechanisms. This oversight, as a modern manifestation of Aristotle’s concept of “public morality,” defines women’s presence in public spaces primarily through their bodies, reducing them to objects that must either be “seen” or “hidden.” Women are represented not by their own voices, but through discourses that speak on their behalf—discourses shaped by male-centered norms that dictate their daily lives.
In this context, visibility has not always equated to emancipation. Social media and popular culture often position women not as autonomous subjects but within roles reproduced by the system. Women’s presence in public spaces cannot constitute genuine subjectivity as long as it is not shaped by their own agency.
Therefore, women’s visibility in the public sphere gains meaning not simply from being seen, but from the conditions under which it occurs and who controls it. Visibility can be part of the path toward subjectivity, but only when women gain authority over their own lives—that is, when they define their own language, bodies, and actions. Otherwise, visibility becomes merely a mask for a new form of surveillance.
The Resistance of Kurdish Women: From Visibility to Subjectivity
It is precisely at this juncture that the resistance of Kurdish women has opened a new door. They do not merely seek inclusion in the public sphere; they aim to redefine its very boundaries, meanings, and value systems. Their demands for education in their own language, representation with their own identities, and social organization based on their own principles are not merely ethnic or gender-based—they embody a philosophy of life. Against the capitalist system’s consumable, commodified, visually reduced image of women, Kurdish women have redefined themselves as collective, productive, and transformative subjects.
The struggle of Kurdish women occupies a unique and multilayered position in historical context. It resists not only patriarchal mentality but also national oppression, cultural assimilation, and political erasure. The dual mechanism of exclusion imposed on being both a woman and Kurdish deepens the significance and transformative power of this struggle. Kurdish women do not simply demand visibility; they challenge the codes, spaces, and epistemologies that define visibility. They do not just declare, “Women are here!” They assert, “Women will decide too!” It is precisely at this point that the definition of the social sphere emerges.
The Rojava Experience: Constructing a New Social Space
In Northern and Eastern Syria, the women’s councils established in Rojava offer a tangible and inspiring example of social transformation. These councils do more than provide representation; they position women as decision-makers, overseers, and transformative actors. Here, women do not simply govern alongside men ,they enact a form of politics that seeks to transcend patriarchal modes of rule. From justice commissions to ecological communes, and from educational cooperatives to media collectives, many structures are organized and run entirely by women.
A particularly distinctive example of this transformation is Jinwar, the free village built by women in Rojava. Founded on the paradigm of Jin, Jîyan, Azadî (Woman, Life, Freedom), Jinwar was created for women impacted by male violence, the ravages of war, and patriarchal structures. It is not merely a living space, but an alternative model of life shaped entirely through women’s labor, knowledge, and agency. All processes from agriculture and education to healthcare, construction, and governance are collectively managed by women. With its adobe houses, environmentally harmonious design, and ecofeminist principles, Jinwar transforms the boundaries of women’s visibility into a space of subjectivity where they freely shape their own lives.
The initiatives in Rojava demonstrate that a social order rooted in solidarity and liberation outside the constraints of state-centered and market-driven logics is not only imaginable but achievable.
Co-Presidency System: Against the Gendered Monopoly of Power
Co-presidency is not merely about ensuring equal representation; it is a structural intervention designed to break the gendered monopoly of power. In male-dominated political structures, women holding not only participatory but equal and joint decision-making positions constitutes a critical threshold for transforming existing political discourse and decision-making processes. In this system, every political and administrative structure is led by both a woman and a man, offering a radical organizational model that translates gender equality from theory into practice.
It goes beyond traditional political representation to actively reshape the structure of power. This approach does not merely increase the quantitative presence of women in politics; it aims to reorganize power relations and overcome patriarchal hierarchies through horizontal, collective models. The core philosophy is not simply to include women in political decision-making but to enable them to transform the very nature of these processes. Consequently, co-presidency functions less as a representational tool and more as a political intervention, challenging all power structures constructed without women.
The transformative power of this system lies not only in the presence of women but in the institutionalization of feminist and liberatory thought. Co-presidency elevates women from symbolic positions to active political subjects, enabling them to shape agendas and carry forward the legacies of struggle into the political arena. In this sense, it is not merely an administrative method but a new political ethic and social imagination that challenges gendered power.
Not Pandora’s Box, but Pandora’s Daughters
This is not merely a struggle for identity; it is a struggle for knowledge, truth, and independence. Women are establishing academies, building collective structures in cultural production, redefining law, and challenging patriarchal codes across all areas of life. This is not simply about representation; it is about constructing existence, meaning, and value.
Today, Kurdish women are redefining many digital, physical, and symbolic spaces that resemble the agoras of Ancient Greece. These definitions are no longer shaped by male-dominated epistemologies but are made with multiple identities, languages, and experiences. Kurdish women are transforming the social sphere into a place that is livable for everyone.
This becomes the story of Pandora’s daughters, who reopen Pandora’s Box not to unleash chaos, but to reclaim the hope, wisdom, and resistance that were forgotten inside. In this story, there is room only for struggle and rebirth.
