“Women’s participation has been under-studied or ignored due to assumptions about women’s desire to participate in a particular group/movement and the organisation’s willingness to include women,” the paper notes.
In some cases, there is a distinction between active agency and coercion in terrorist activities. For example, in the case of women’s recruitment into ISIS.
In fact, women and minors accounted for up to 25 per cent of all recorded foreign ISIS affiliates in theatre, and around one-in-five (21%) of returnees.
“The group were less ideational and more emotional, such as feelings of acceptance, empowerment and the development of interpersonal bonds,” researchers found.
However, it went on to learn “once inside, some women do challenge jihadi gender norms, such as the prohibition of women to work and commit violent jihad.”
In most cases, women tend to prefer working within roles, which uphold gender norms than openly oppose the rules entirely.
The rationale behind men and women joining terrorist organisations is quite different. However, Professor Beverley Milton-Edwards from Queen’s University Belfast, said women are still making choices.
“It’s just that the frame of choice that they’re making is not what we as a society expect them to make because we believe that these groups are only offering opportunities that bind women, that enslave women, and exploit them.”
PROFESSOR BEVERLEY MILTON-EDWARDS
However, Professor Milton-Edwards believes some women still find their involvement in terrorist regimes as “a form of empowerment, liberation, and an opportunity to live in a society with a belief system that they subscribe”.
