Jihadi brides and female volunteers: Reading the Islamic State’s war to see gender and agency in conflict dynamics

Abstract

Decades ago, Cynthia Enloe called for a research agenda looking for where women are in war and conflict. Enloe recognized that women play active roles in and are affected by wars and conflicts, but are often ignored in news coverage, policy analysis, and scholarship. The current conflict in Syria and Iraq appears as a counterexample: hundreds of millions of Google results mention women and the Islamic State (IS). Subjects vary widely: the stories cover female victims of IS, female recruits to IS, and women who fight IS. This article explores the hypervisibility of women in this conflict, looking for lessons about sex, gender, and conflict. The first part analyses discourses in a sample of major news reports, evaluating how different women around IS are represented. It finds that agency is removed from both female victims and female IS partisans, while it is exaggerated for women who fight against IS. This corresponds with emphasis on different gendered traits for differently positioned women. After tracing these gendered representations, the article applies theories of gender and conflict to understand how women have become central to the fighting and coverage of the conflict in Syria and Iraq. It concludes that paying attention both to the empirical presence of women and to the co-constitution of gender, war, and conflict augments understanding of this war, and across conflicts.

Keywords

Feminist theory gender Islamic State media coverage terrorism violence war

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Acker

(1990) Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organizations. Gender and Society 4(2): 139–158.

Ahall

(2012) Motherhood, myth and gendered agency in political violence. International Feminist Journal of Politics 14(1): 103–120.

Ali

(2015) Britain is right to cut out the Islamist Cancer. The Times, 22 July 2015. Available from: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4504531.ece (accessed 27 February 2017).

Amoore

(2015) Paying their own way to fight Isis. The Sunday Times, 22 March. Available from: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/world_news/Middle_East/article1534348.ece (accessed 28 January 2016).

Auchter

(2012) Gendering terror: Discourses of terrorism and writing woman-as-agent. International Feminist Journal of Politics 14(1): 121–139.

Bannerman

(2015) Woman with the highest price on her head. The Times, 10 October 2015. Available from: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4581851.ece (accessed 28 January 2016).

Bennett

(2015) Daesh? ISIS? Islamic State? Why what we call the Paris attackers matters. Washington Post, 25 November. Available from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2015/11/25/daesh-isis-islamic-state-why-what-we-call-the-paris-attackers-matters/ (accessed 20 January 2016).

Braybon

(2012) Women Workers in the First World War. London: Routledge.

Bush

(2002) Text of Bush’s speech at West Point. New York Times, 1 June 2002. Available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/01/international/02PTEX-WEB.html?pagewanted=all (accessed 21 January 2016).

10.

CBS (2016) ISIS holding 3,500 slaves in Iraq, UN Says. CBSNews.com, 19 January 2016. Available from: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/un-isis-slaves-iraq-yazidi-women-children-civilian-death-toll/ (accessed 20 January 2016).

11.

Coghlan

(2015) Taliban hardliners join Isis and trigger sectarian killings. The Times, 10 November 2015. Available from: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/afghanistan/article4609388.ece (accessed 28 January 2016).

12.

Cohen

(2013) Female combatants and the perpetration of violence: Wartime rape in the Sierra Leone civil war. World Politics 65(3): 383–415.

13.

Cohen

(2016) The Kurds should not be denied our support. The Guardian, 16 January 2016. Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/16/west-must-back-kurds-independence-allies-against-isis (accessed 21 January 2016).

14.

Cohn

(ed.) (2012) Women and Wars. London: Polity.

15.

Confortini

(2012) Intelligent Compassion: Feminist Critical Methodology in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press.

16.

Croco

Gartner

(2014) Flip-flops and high heels: An experimental analysis of elite position change and gender on wartime public support. International Interactions 40(1): 1–124.

17.

Dalton

Asal

(2011) Is it ideology or desparation: Why do organizations deploy women in violent terrorist attacks? Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 34(10): 802–819.

18.

Downes

(2006) Targeting Civilians in War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

19.

Drury

Peksen

(2014) Women and economic statecraft: The negative international economic sanctions visit on women. European Journal of International Relations 20(2): 463–490.

20.

Elshtain

(1985) Women and Wars. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

21.

Enloe

(1989) Bananas, Beaches, and Bases. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

22.

Enloe

(2010) Nimo’s War, Emma’s War. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

23.

Eriksson Baaz

Stern

(2013) Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War? Perceptions, Prescriptions, and Problems in the Congo and Beyond. London: Zed Books.

24.

Gentry

Sjoberg

(2015) Beyond Mothers, Monsters, Whores. London: Zed Books.

25.

Goldstein

(2001) War and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

26.

Hamilton

(2015) Women are attracted by utopian message of empowerment. The Times, 20 November 2015. Available from: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article4618992.ece (accessed 28 January 2016).

27.

Harris

King

(eds) (1989) Rocking the Ship of the State: Toward a Feminist Peace Politics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

28.

Hudson

Caprioli

Ballif-Spanvil

McDermott

Emmett

(2009) The heart of the matter: The security of women and the security of states. International Security 33(3): 7–25.

29.

Hudson

Ballif-Spanvil

McDermott

Emmett

(2012) Sex and World Peace. New York: Columbia University Press.

30.

Huntington

(1996) The Clash of Civilizations. New York: Simon & Schuster.

31.

Huston

(1983) Tales of War and Tears of Women, in Stiehm

(ed.), Women and Men’s Wars. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

32.

Hynes

(2004) On the battlefield of women’s bodies: An overview of the harm of war to women. Women’s Studies International Forum 27(5): 431–445.

33.

Jaber

(2015) Mother of five begs for rescue from Isis. The Sunday Times, 23 August 2015. Available from: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/jihadists/article1597159.ece (accessed 28 January 2016).

34.

Krook

O’Brien

(2012) All the president’s men? The appointment of female cabinet ministers worldwide. Journal of Politics 74(2): 840–855.

35.

Linetsky

(2015) How to defeat ISIS. The American Prospect, 30 November 2015. Available from: http://prospect.org/article/how-defeat-isis (accessed 21 January 2016).

36.

Lucas

(2015) News guide: Latest developments on the Islamic State Group. Associated Press, 9 March 2015. Available from: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a9420b377b3b4f52bc88f07196ae2dd3/activists-say-airstrike-hits-islamic-state-held-oil (accessed 21 January 2016).

37.

McEvoy

(2009) Loyalist women paramilitaries in Northern Ireland: Beginning a feminist conversation about conflict resolution. Security Studies 18(2): 262–286.

38.

McKay

(2016) Christian mothers, wives take up the fight against ISIS, whose women serve as suicide bombers and slaves. Fox News, 18 January. Available from: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/01/18/christian-mothers-wives-take-up-fight-against-isis-whose-women-serve-as-suicide-bombers-and-slaves.html (accessed 20 January 2016).

39.

MacKenzie

(2009) Securitization and desecuritization: Female soldiers and the reconstruction of women in post-conflict Sierra Leone. Security Studies 18(2): 241–261.

40.

MacKenzie

(2012) Female Soldiers in Sierra Leone: Sex, Security, and Post-conflcit Development. New York: New York University Press.

41.

Moon

(1997) Sex Among Allies. New York: Columbia University Press.

42.

News.com.au (2015) Islamic State issues new ruling on sex slaves. News.com.au, 30 December 2015. Available from: http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/islamic-state-issues-new-ruling-on-sex-slaves/news-story/819d5dab72825b15f50c190bf6727233 (accessed 20 January 2016).

43.

News.com.au (2016) Austrian girl who joined ISIS in Syria was “used as a sexual present” before being beaten to death. News.com.au 1 January 2016. Available from: http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/austrian-girl-who-joined-isis-in-syria-was-used-as-a-sexual-present-before-being-beaten-to-death/news-story/ca34c5000472f8e0765d424273e13da5 (accessed 20 January 2016).

44.

Nordas

Rustad

SCA

(2013) Sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers: Understanding variation. International Interactions 39(4): 511–534.

45.

O’Rourke

(2009) What’s so special about female terrorism. Strategic Studies 18(4): 681–718.

46.

Parashar

(2011) Gender, jihad, and jingoism: Women as perpetrators, planners, and patrons of militancy in Kashmir. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 34(4): 295–317.

47.

Post Editorial Board (2015) The tragedy of the “jihadi brides”. New York Post, 27 November 2015. Available from: http://nypost.com/2015/11/27/the-tragedy-of-the-jihadi-brides/ (accessed 20 January 2016).

48.

Schute

(2016) How ISIL are preying on female converts in Britain to make them into jihadi brides. The Telegraph, 9 January. Available from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/12089882/How-Isil-are-preying-on-female-converts-in-Britain-to-make-them-into-jihadi-brides.html (accessed 20 January 2016).

49.

Sealey

(2012) Libya’s lady rebels. Marie Claire, 24 January. Available from: http://www.marieclaire.com/politics/news/g1359/libya-lady-rebels/#slide-1 (accessed 27 February 2017).

50.

Shane

(2015) From Minneapolis to ISIS: An American’s path to jihad. New York Times, 21 March 2015. Available from: http://nyti.ms/1IbdXzU (accessed 28 January 2016).

51.

Shepherd

(2010) Gender Matters in Global Politics. London: Routledge.

52.

Simpson

(2015) Teenage twins luring girls to Islamic State. The Times, 28 May 2015. Available from: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4453214.ece (accessed 28 January 2016).

53.

Sjoberg

(2006) Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq. New York: Lexington Books.

54.

Sjoberg

(2007) Agency, militarized femininity, and enemy others: Observations from the War in Iraq. International Feminist Journal of Politics 9(1): 82–101.

55.

Sjoberg

(2010) women Fighters and the “beautiful soul!” narrative. International Review of the Red Cross 92(877): 53–68.

56.

Sjoberg

(2013) Gendering Global Conflict: Towards a Feminist Theory of War. New York: Columbia University Press.

57.

Sjoberg

(2014) Gender, War, and Conflict. London: Polity.

58.

Sjoberg

(2016) Women as Wartime Rapists. New York: New York University Press.

59.

Sjoberg

Gentry

(2007) Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics. London: Zed Books.

60.

Sjoberg

Gentry

(2008) Reduced to bad sex: Narratives of violent women from the Bible to the War on Terror. International Relations 22(1): 5–23.

61.

Sjoberg

Peet

(2011) A(nother) dark side of the protection racket: Targeting women in wars. International Feminist Journal of Politics 13(2): 163–182.

62.

Sjoberg

Wood

(2015) People, not pawns: Women’s participation in violent extremism across MENA. USAID Research Brief, September 2015, n. 1. Available from: https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/CVE_RESEARCHBRIEF_PEOPLENOTPAWNS.pdf (accessed 22 January 2016).

63.

Spivak

(1988) Can the subaltern speak? In: Nelson

(ed.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Urbana-Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, pp. 271–313.

64.

Wibben

(2011) Feminist Security Studies. London: Routledge.

65.

Wodak

(2001) The discourse-historical approach. In: Meyer

Wodak

(eds), Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage, pp. 63–94.

66.

Wong

(2011) Libya’s female fighters: Rebels training dozens of women to chant, fire weapons. Huffington Post World, 2 June. Available from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/02/libya-female-fighters_n_870608.html (accessed 17 November 2013).

67.

Young

(2003) The logic of masculinist protection: Reflections on the current security state. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 29(1): 1–25.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.07 MB