Women in Terrorism Essay

Abstract

Traditionally, the warfare was viewed as a sheer male business, but, at the same time, women involvement into the warfare occurred in different times in different parts of the world. Today, when the international and domestic terrorism emerges, the involvement of women in terrorist activities progresses too. Female suicide bombers are particularly dangerous, although there are other types of female terrorists, including women specialized on hijacking and other terror attacks. Women join terrorist organization because of a variety of factors, from their desperate position triggered by the loss of relatives to the blind conviction and faith in the righteousness of extremist ideology, like radical Islamism, or Marxism, or whatsoever. Terrorist organizations, in their turn, recruit female terrorists because they may be more effective compared to male terrorists. Security agents and law enforcement officers cannot always detect female terrorists, while the probability of the early detection of a male terrorist is much higher compared to the detection of a female terrorist. The further progress and wide deployment of female terrorism makes terrorism even more dangerous that it has ever been before because the difficulty of the detection of female terrorists and their ability to commit terror attacks, including suicide bombing, make them extremely dangerous and, in some respects, more efficient than male terrorists.

Introduction

Today, terrorism is one of the major threats to the public safety. The emergence of international and domestic terrorism urges many countries to enhance their counter-terrorist policies and operations to prevent new attacks and threats that may affect civilians. However, terrorist organizations deploy more and more sophisticated methods of struggle and engage individuals with different background to terrorist activities. In such a way, they decrease the risk of their revelation by security agencies, while, on the other hand, they attempt to increase the efficiency of their terror attacks. In this regard, the deployment of female terrorists has become one of the major trends in the development of contemporary terrorism. Even though the use of women as terrorists is not new, their current deployment by terrorist organizations has reached the unparalleled, high level. In the past, female terrorists were quite rare, while now they have almost become a norm. Unlike patriarchal societies, where many terrorist organizations and terrorists emerge from, terrorist organizations are much more liberal in regard of gender relations and deployment of female terrorists to achieve their goals. Therefore, the emergence of female terrorism has become one of the mainstream trends in the development of the contemporary terrorism because of the high efficiency of female terrorists and probably unpreparedness of law enforcement and security agencies to confront female terrorists effectively.

Gender roles and warfare

Historically, warfare was the sheer male business, but females still participated in wars from ancient times to present days. Women were just under-represented in military groups and armies compared to men (Schalk, 1996). The men deployment in military operations and warfare was determined by their higher efficiency in terms of their physical capabilities mainly. Female could not always compete with men and confront them in the open fight effectively. Nevertheless, female warriors were present in armies from ancient times that means that the inclusion of women into the military service and warfare was more or less present in different time. In the past, women remained consistently more under-represented than they are now.

At the same time, gender differences have started to disappear as women have started to play more important part in the political, economic and social life. Women have started to take an active part in social, political and economic life (Mehta, 2010). They have started to enter jobs, which were traditionally perceived as male jobs. In this regard, the military job was one of the main domains, where women were outsiders. Nevertheless, the progress of feminism and the change of the role of women in society have opened the way for women into the military service. Traditionally, western countries were in the avant-garde of the female fast integration into the military service and warfare.

Paradoxically, the role of women became very significant in countries, where patriarchal culture dominated, including countries of the Middle East. However, unlike western countries, where females joined the army and conducted their military service, women in the Middle East and the third world often joined not the army but terrorist organizations, where they also performed the military service and performed functions attributed to them by terrorist organizations. In such a way, women became engaged actively in terrorist organizations in countries, where patriarchal traditions were very strong and when women traditionally held the position of second-class citizens. This trend was the manifestation of the indifference of terrorist organizations to human resources recruited for terror attacks because overall terrorists are expected to carry out terror attacks, often at cost of their life.  

Emerging terrorism and women deployment

Today, when the international and domestic terrorism emerges, the involvement of women in terrorist activities progresses too. Female suicide bombers are particularly dangerous, although there are other types of female terrorists, including women specialized on hijacking and other terror attacks. The development of the international and domestic terrorism occurred in response to the consistent enhancement of the world major powers, such as the US, and the fast westernization of the world (Prashar, 2009). The westernization involved the political and economic expansion and enhancement of the influence of western countries and culture in the world accompanied by the growing cultural impact of the western civilization on other countries. In such a situation, the inability of minor nations and various groups to confront the major world powers in the open combat urged them to use terrorism as the major method of their warfare.

In this regard, the deployment of women in terrorist activities became one of the mainstream trends in the development of the contemporary terrorism at both international and domestic levels. In fact, many terrorist organizations deploy female terrorists to conduct their attacks and to reach their goals. They recruit female terrorists from regions, where the socioeconomic and political situation is unstable and where the share of the population with the military experience is high or where women are in the desperate position to the extent that they join terrorist organizations. The latter often use radical ideology or religion to attract women to their activities.

Today, the number of attacks conducted by female terrorists is high. In this regard, researchers (Cunningham, 2003) place emphasis on the wide use of female terrorists as suicide bombers. At this point, it is possible to refer to the case of Chechen Black Widows, for example. The use of female terrorist as suicide bombers reveal the attitude of terrorist organizations toward female terrorists as a mere tool in hands of terrorist organizations, which they use to reach their goals without any interest to  the life and wellbeing of terrorists proper. Terrorist organizations from all over the world, including such terrorist organizations as Al-Qaeda or ISIS/ISIL, recruit females to deploy them in their terrorist attacks in different parts of the world.

At the same time, terrorist organizations do not always deploy women as suicide bombers. They also use female terrorist for other terrorist activities, such as hijacking, for example. At this point, it is possible to refer to the case of Leila Khaled, the notorious female terrorist struggling for the independence of Palestine, whose specialization was hijacking of aircrafts (Kendall, 2015). In such a way, terrorist organizations use female terrorists to perform different terrorist acts and attempt to maximize the efficiency of their use by terrorist organizations.

Reasons and drivers for female deployment in terrorism

Women join terrorist organization because of a variety of factors, from their desperate position triggered by the loss of relatives to the blind conviction and faith in the righteousness of extremist ideology, like radical Islamism, or Marxism, or whatsoever. In such a way, the ideological ground is an important factor that drives women to join terrorist organizations. They are inspired and often deceived by terrorist organizations, which use ideology just to condition the consciousness of terrorists and to make them obedient to fulfill all the orders, whichever terrorist organization can command them.

Furthermore, the extreme poverty and the desperate socioeconomic position of women and their families also contribute to the development of terrorism and female terrorism in particular (Schmid, 2012). Women living in desperate conditions often feel their life being purposeless and terrorist organizations offer them the ideology that gives them the way out. However, this way out offers them just the one-way ticket to a terrorist organization, where they are used as mere tools of terror attacks. Therefore, terrorist organizations use females as tools that help them to achieve their goals, whereas the life, health and wellbeing of female terrorists worth nothing for them.

At the same time, researchers (LaFree, Morris, & Dugan, 2010) point out that terrorist organizations may force females to join them and to participate in terrorist activities. As a rule, terrorist organizations select females, who have lost their family members in a war, for example. They recruit them and breed their anger, hate, and despair to make their life even more purposeless. When women get no reason to live for, they are ready to commit any terror attack whichever the terrorist organization prepares for them. Also, researchers () insist that women, who have suffered abuse, for example, rape, are more likely to join terrorist organizations because they cannot afford living with their psychological trauma and the death is a sort of bless for them. Such females often become suicide bombers and are trained by terrorist organizations to carry out their deadly acts without any regret or doubt.

Female terrorists and their perception of security agents

Terrorist organizations, in their turn, recruit female terrorists because they may be more effective compared to male terrorists. Security agents and law enforcement officers cannot always detect female terrorists, while the probability of the early detection of a male terrorist is much higher compared to the detection of a female terrorist (Huckerby, 2015). In this regard, security agents face the problem of the overwhelming impact of gender-related biases and stereotypes which prevent them of an opportunity to indentify female terrorists. For example, the aforementioned female terrorist, Leila Khaled committed her hijacks, even though security agents stopped her and asked her to show her bag, where there were some make-up covering TNT, but the security agent did not even try to look carefully into the bag and let her in (Kendall, 2015). This example reveals the full extent to which psychological factors and gender-related prejudices are strong in law enforcement and security agencies. In fact, security agents may and often do have the biased attitude to women as terrorists. Therefore, they are rather looking for male terrorists than female ones. But their underestimation of the threat of female terrorists can lead to the failure to identify terrorists and stop them.

Furthermore, the prejudiced attitude of security agents to women is widely used by terrorist organizations, which train female terrorists to commit terror attacks. Gender-related biases are the result of the historical under-representation of women in the military and the view on the warfare as a sheer male business (House, et al., 2004). Today, such a view is not just biased but simply erroneous and the inability of security agents to identify female terrorists leads to terror attacks committed by female terrorists. Such a situation reveals the necessity of special training of security agents to confront female terrorists.

Consequences of female terrorism

The further progress and wide deployment of female terrorism makes terrorism even more dangerous that it has ever been before because the difficulty of the detection of female terrorists and their ability to commit terror attacks, including suicide bombing, make them extremely dangerous and, in some respects, more efficient than male terrorists (Piazza, 2008). In fact, the use of female terrorists may lead to devastating consequences because the low preparedness of security agencies to confront women in terrorism increases the risk of the ultimate success of terror attacks and numerous casualties being caused by the attacks. The less prepared security agencies for terror attacks are, the most devastating are effects of such attacks.

At the same time, the development of the female terrorism leads to the expansion of scope of terrorist as well as anti-terrorist activities. What is meant here is the fact that terrorist organizations focus on the recruitment and training of female terrorists. Gender specificities determine differences in the recruitment and training process used by terrorist organizations. In response, law enforcement agencies and security agencies should develop their anti-terrorist activities taking into consideration new threats that emerge from female terrorists. In such a way, they may change methods of their anti-terrorist activities and procedures used to identify suspect terrorists.

In a long-run perspective, the wide use of women in terrorism will lead to the overall change of the public attitude toward women. At the moment, terrorist organizations use female terrorists successfully because of strong gender-related biases and association of women with the image of mother, safety, innocence and so on. The wide involvement of women in terrorism shifts the paradigm and creates a negative image of women, which are perceived as a source of threat.   The further progress of terrorism and the wider involvement of women in terrorist activities may contribute to profound cultural changes and elimination of traditional gender-related biases, which view the warfare and, therefore, terrorism, as a sheer male business.

Conclusion

Thus, the development of the contemporary terrorism involves the wider engagement of women in terrorist activities because terrorist organizations view them as effective tools to reach their goals, while law enforcement agencies and security agencies cannot always prevent terror acts committed by women as successfully as they do in regard to male terrorists. The development of terrorism at the international and domestic level involves the wider use of female terrorists, whom terrorist organizations recruit from different parts of the world, especially those stricken by war, poverty and desperate socioeconomic conditions. The desperate position of women is the major driver for them to join terrorist organizations, especially if they lose any sense to live for.

References:

Cunningham, K. (2003). Cross-Regional Trends in Female Terrorism, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 26, 171–195.

House, R.J., et al. (2004). Leadership, Culture, and Organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies. New York: Sage Publications.

Huckerby, J. (2015). When women become terrorists. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/opinion/when-women-become-terrorists.html?_r=0

Kandell, B. (2015). What drives women to extreme acts? BBC World. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-33600267

LaFree, G, Morris, N, and Dugan, L. (2010).  Cross-National Patterns of Terrorism: Comparing Trajectories for Total, Attributed and Fatal Attacks, 1970–2006, Br J Criminol 50 (4), 622-649

Mehta, R.K. (2010). Lost Victory: The Rise & Fall of LTTE Supremo, V. Prabhakaran, Pentagon Security International: New Delhi.

Prashar, S. (2009). Feminist international relations and women militants: case studies from Sri Lanka and Kashmir, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 22(2), 235- 256

Piazza, J. A. (2008). Incubators of terror: do failed and failing states promote terrorism? International Studies Quarterly, 52, 469–488.

Schalk, P. (1996). Women Fighters of the Liberation Tigers in Tamil Ilam, South Asia Research, 14(2), 163-195.

Schmid, A. (2012). The Revised Academic Consensus Definition of Terrorism, Perspectives on Terrorism, 6 (2).

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

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