WHEN Anna Campbell heard that Kurdish women were fighting the jihadists of Islamic State in Syria, she left her job as a plumber in Britain and joined them. Ms Campbell (pictured), who was privately educated, said she wanted to defend the “revolution of women” in Kurdish-held parts of the country—even though the British government regards such volunteers as, in effect, terrorists. On March 15th a missile killed her as she fought with the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), the Kurds’ all-female militia, against the Turkish army.

Kurdish women first took up arms in the early 1990s, as members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long war for self-rule in Turkey. Inspired by Murray Bookchin, an obscure American philosopher, Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s leader, sought to empower his female comrades. “The 5,000-year-old history of civilisation is essentially the history of the enslavement of women,” wrote the now-imprisoned Mr Ocalan, whose ideas are also embraced by Syria’s Kurdish leaders.

The first volunteers struggled, amid mockery and abuse by the men in their ranks. Few were given weapons. But the YPJ is now celebrated for its battlefield prowess; some women even command men. In January a female fighter blew herself up to destroy a Turkish tank. The death of another sparked outrage when Syrian rebels fighting alongside Turkey mutilated her body.

Those who join the YPJ must swear off sex and romance. They are like fighting nuns, says a Dutch academic. That has won over conservative Kurdish men, many of whom oppose other forms of progress for women. Over their objections, the ruling Democratic Union Party has banned forced marriages and polygamy. Honour killings and domestic abuse are harshly punished. Party rules mandate that women make up at least 40% of every governing body and that each is headed by a man and a woman.

Kurdish children in Syria are taught that self-rule will come only after the oppression of women stops. Yet Kurdish women enjoy more freedom in Turkey, in part because they are better educated. For Syrian Kurdistan to live up to Ms Campbell’s hopes for the region, more progress must occur off the battlefield.