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Jineolojî
Die Jineolojî versucht Öcalans Feststellung gerecht zu werden, dass eine „Neustrukturierung der Sozialwissenschaften nötig ist, um eine demokratischere, geschlechterbefreitere und ökologischere Gesellschaft aufzubauen.“ Daher sollte sie, egal mit welchem sozialwissenschaftlichen Thema sie sich auseinandersetzt, zunächst diesen Zustand der Sozialwissenschaften bewältigen und angemessen kämpfen. Die Sozialwissenschaften sind zum stärksten Bollwerk des Positivismus und des Liberalismus geworden. Daher wird der grundlegende Auftrag der Jineolojî eine radikale Kritik und Neubewertung der Sozialwissenschaften aus der Perspektive der Frau und der gesellschaftlichen Revolution sein.
Die Jineolojî vorzuschlagen, sie zu kreieren und zu entwickeln ist eine tiefgreifende Kritik und eine Intervention gegen die Sozialwissenschaften an sich. Wenn es ihr gelingt, sich in den Bereichen von inhaltlichen Definitionen, Wissensstrukturen und Methoden der Wissensgenerierung zu organisieren und wenn sie gesellschaftlich wird, kann sie ein Potenzial zur Lösung der heutigen Krise der Sozialwissenschaften entfalten.
Die Jineolojî vorzuschlagen, sie zu kreieren und zu entwickeln ist eine tiefgreifende Kritik und eine Intervention gegen die Sozialwissenschaften an sich. Wenn es ihr gelingt, sich in den Bereichen von inhaltlichen Definitionen, Wissensstrukturen und Methoden der Wissensgenerierung zu organisieren und wenn sie gesellschaftlich wird, kann sie ein Potenzial zur Lösung der heutigen Krise der Sozialwissenschaften entfalten.
88 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 7, 2021
Jineolojî, rappresenta la perfetta congiunzione fra teoria e prassi politica rivoluzionaria. Rifiutando l'autorità dello Stato-nazione, abbracciando l'ecologismo e riconoscendo il valore produttivo e riproduttivo delle donne, Jineoloji squarcia nuovi orizzonti consapevole che per la liberazione delle donne, occorre ridiscutere l'essenza del sistema (e viceversa) offrendo uno sguardo critico a temi spesso tralasciati in occidente e che nell'esperienza curda sono stati temi fondamentali come quello dell'autodifesa, la creazione di comunità autonome, la critica alla sociologia la comunità scientifica .
September 25, 2026
I read this book for my doctoral research on the organizational structure of women within the PKK/KCK, and I found it far more interesting as a political and ideological text than as a genuinely new contribution to social theory.
My first problem is the claim of originality. Jineoloji presents itself as a new “science of women,” yet most of the questions it places at the centre of this project are hardly new: patriarchy, women’s exclusion from knowledge production, the recovery of women’s history, the relationship between power and knowledge, and the political consequences of gender hierarchy have been central concerns of feminist thought for decades. The historical narrative through which this “new science” is constructed is even more problematic. The book creates an almost linear account of human history: women are associated with the communal and productive life of early societies; hunting contributes to the rise of male power; the “strong man” emerges; shamans and older men become part of this new order; and from there patriarchy, hierarchy, religion, the state and war develop almost as successive stages of the same process.
Human history is considerably less convenient than this. The issue is not that these hypotheses cannot be discussed. The issue is the certainty with which highly contested claims about prehistoric societies are presented. A complex history of human social organization is reduced to a remarkably simple opposition between women as the original bearers of life, cooperation and freedom and men as the source of domination, hierarchy and violence. In attempting to dismantle one gender binary, the book creates another.
There is another contradiction I found impossible to overlook. Jineolojî is presented as a project for liberating women from the “dominant male mentality,” yet its foundational theoretical framework comes from Abdullah Öcalan, the so-called founder and leader of the PKK, a terrorist organization. The PKK has carried out decades of terrorist attacks in Türkiye, including attacks that killed civilians.
This context matters.
Öcalan also repeatedly uses the language of emasculation to describe Kurdish history, portraying the Kurdish people as having been “castrated” or feminized by the Turkish state and framing resistance through the recovery of strength and agency. I do not accept this historical narrative as an adequate description of Türkiye or of the relationship between the Turkish state and Kurdish citizens. What interests me here is precisely what this language reveals about Öcalan’s own theoretical framework.
There is a striking irony in a theory that seeks to liberate women from male domination while repeatedly explaining political subordination through the language of being “castrated.” In this framework, domination becomes feminization, while resistance becomes the recovery of masculine power. That is hardly a clean break with the very gender hierarchy the book claims to transcend.
And then there is the question of what Jineolojî actually does politically. When the participation of women in the PKK/KCK is described through the vocabulary of liberation, autonomy and emancipation, I think it is necessary to ask whether Jineoloji also functions as an ideological framework for legitimizing women’s participation in a terrorist organization and presenting that organization in a more acceptable language to Western audiences.
For a foreign reader, the political context is especially important. Türkiye is not some distant or ancient setting that can be reduced to a few pages about patriarchy and resistance. This is a contemporary country in which the PKK has conducted an armed terrorist campaign for decades and in which civilians have been among the victims. A reader approaching this subject from outside Türkiye may not know all of this history, but that makes contextualization more necessary, not less.
I also remain unconvinced by the idea that Öcalan discovered an entirely new intellectual continent. Feminist thought did not begin with Jineoloji. Women had already been theorizing patriarchy, power, violence, knowledge, labour, sexuality and political agency for generations. Even scholarship sympathetic to the Kurdish women’s movement has questioned the extent to which Jineolojî constitutes a genuinely “new science,” rather than a political and intellectual project that draws on existing feminist and other traditions.
For me, this is ultimately what makes the book worth reading — but not for the reasons it gives itself.
As a primary text for understanding how the PKK/KCK conceptualizes women, gender and its own organizational structure, it is extremely revealing. As a new science of women, I found its historical assumptions, theoretical originality and political claims deeply unconvincing.
And perhaps the most ironic part is that a theory supposedly designed to free women from the “dominant male mentality” still places a man at the centre of the intellectual project.
Öcalan did not discover a new continent amk.
My first problem is the claim of originality. Jineoloji presents itself as a new “science of women,” yet most of the questions it places at the centre of this project are hardly new: patriarchy, women’s exclusion from knowledge production, the recovery of women’s history, the relationship between power and knowledge, and the political consequences of gender hierarchy have been central concerns of feminist thought for decades. The historical narrative through which this “new science” is constructed is even more problematic. The book creates an almost linear account of human history: women are associated with the communal and productive life of early societies; hunting contributes to the rise of male power; the “strong man” emerges; shamans and older men become part of this new order; and from there patriarchy, hierarchy, religion, the state and war develop almost as successive stages of the same process.
Human history is considerably less convenient than this. The issue is not that these hypotheses cannot be discussed. The issue is the certainty with which highly contested claims about prehistoric societies are presented. A complex history of human social organization is reduced to a remarkably simple opposition between women as the original bearers of life, cooperation and freedom and men as the source of domination, hierarchy and violence. In attempting to dismantle one gender binary, the book creates another.
There is another contradiction I found impossible to overlook. Jineolojî is presented as a project for liberating women from the “dominant male mentality,” yet its foundational theoretical framework comes from Abdullah Öcalan, the so-called founder and leader of the PKK, a terrorist organization. The PKK has carried out decades of terrorist attacks in Türkiye, including attacks that killed civilians.
This context matters.
Öcalan also repeatedly uses the language of emasculation to describe Kurdish history, portraying the Kurdish people as having been “castrated” or feminized by the Turkish state and framing resistance through the recovery of strength and agency. I do not accept this historical narrative as an adequate description of Türkiye or of the relationship between the Turkish state and Kurdish citizens. What interests me here is precisely what this language reveals about Öcalan’s own theoretical framework.
There is a striking irony in a theory that seeks to liberate women from male domination while repeatedly explaining political subordination through the language of being “castrated.” In this framework, domination becomes feminization, while resistance becomes the recovery of masculine power. That is hardly a clean break with the very gender hierarchy the book claims to transcend.
And then there is the question of what Jineolojî actually does politically. When the participation of women in the PKK/KCK is described through the vocabulary of liberation, autonomy and emancipation, I think it is necessary to ask whether Jineoloji also functions as an ideological framework for legitimizing women’s participation in a terrorist organization and presenting that organization in a more acceptable language to Western audiences.
For a foreign reader, the political context is especially important. Türkiye is not some distant or ancient setting that can be reduced to a few pages about patriarchy and resistance. This is a contemporary country in which the PKK has conducted an armed terrorist campaign for decades and in which civilians have been among the victims. A reader approaching this subject from outside Türkiye may not know all of this history, but that makes contextualization more necessary, not less.
I also remain unconvinced by the idea that Öcalan discovered an entirely new intellectual continent. Feminist thought did not begin with Jineoloji. Women had already been theorizing patriarchy, power, violence, knowledge, labour, sexuality and political agency for generations. Even scholarship sympathetic to the Kurdish women’s movement has questioned the extent to which Jineolojî constitutes a genuinely “new science,” rather than a political and intellectual project that draws on existing feminist and other traditions.
For me, this is ultimately what makes the book worth reading — but not for the reasons it gives itself.
As a primary text for understanding how the PKK/KCK conceptualizes women, gender and its own organizational structure, it is extremely revealing. As a new science of women, I found its historical assumptions, theoretical originality and political claims deeply unconvincing.
And perhaps the most ironic part is that a theory supposedly designed to free women from the “dominant male mentality” still places a man at the centre of the intellectual project.
Öcalan did not discover a new continent amk.
July 19, 2025
Jag börjar med att säga att jag inte riktigt är inläst i feministisk och postkolonial teori men jag tycker att konceptet bygger alldeles för mycket på könsessentialism. Det var även konstigt att läsa om Det Kurdiska Folkets Ledare fastän det här ska komma långt efter att den kurdiska befrielserörelsen övergav marxism-leninismen. En intressant och välförklarad teori, i alla fall.
March 17, 2025
Il libro introduce alla jineolojî, la scienza della donna. È interessante e utile per chi vuole avere una panoramica dell'argomento
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews