The limitations of counterterrorism: Where are the women?
Sofia Patel
‘New Voices in Global Security’ is a collaborative blog series between the School of Security Studies, King’s College London, and International Affairs. In this post, Sofia Patel investigates the gendered limitations of UK counterterrorism policy.
The actions of 145 British women who left their homes to join Islamic State’s (ISIS) Caliphate forced the British government to recognize the complex and varied roles played by women within terrorist groups. The case of Shamima Begum, who in 2019, sought to return to the UK, raised a series of security, legal and humanitarian questions surrounding the UK’s approach to counterterrorism and in particular, how it responds to female ‘terrorist’ actors.
Although there has been much research dedicated to ‘women and terrorism’ spanning geopolitical conflict arenas from Chechnya and Palestine to Sri Lanka and Colombia, until fairly recently, there has been little attention paid to considering the gendered factors relating to women and counterterrorism. This has meant that when counterterrorism policies have attempted to integrate a female perspective in their responses, the results have often essentialized women or contributed to reproducing stereotypes about women in terrorism. In order to address this research gap, my PhD examines the UK’s approach to designing and practicing counterterrorism and asks ‘How have gender dynamics influenced perceptions of and responses to women in terrorism?’
Analysing gender in counterterrorism
My research contributes to a burgeoning body of feminist scholarship which has moved the conversations about women, terrorism and counterterrorism forward over the past few years. Until recently, little research had examined the gendered aspects of counterterrorism, which has meant that very little progress has been made in policy and practice. An early pioneer in this field, Fionnuala Ní Aólain’s research on gendered counterterrorism measures in Northern Ireland explicitly highlights how a lack of gender awareness in British counterterrorism policy-making led to different impacts on women and men in practice. I build on this research to examine how British counterterrorism laws and policies have continued to have gendered (and racialized) effects in a post-9/11 environment. Men and women are affected differently by counterterrorism responses, and also require different interventions that respond to their respective experiences.
The objective of this research is to create an original and replicable framework through which I can map and theorize the ways gender is understood, operationalized and omitted within the discourses and practices of British counterterrorism institutions. Applying a gender lens to our examination of counterterrorism allows for a more nuanced and complete understanding of how women are engaged in its discourses and practices. Gender exists both overtly and covertly: through the presence of male and female bodies, and through the behaviours and practices of these bodies. Such bodies are themselves governed by gendered social norms and behaviours that have become institutionalized in particular settings over time, and which apply preconceived notions of masculinity and femininity to men and women.
I examine how gendered norms are reproduced through counterterrorism discourses and practices and how this process influences our understanding of and response to terrorist threats. I specifically investigate the factors influencing how women have been integrated into counterterrorism’s institutional arrangements as agents and targets of policy and practice in the UK, and how these arrangements have evolved over the last twenty years. I am not only interested in how the state integrates women within its practices of doing counterterrorism, but also how counterterrorism has constructed women within its discourses and practices.
Counterterrorism’s gendered limitations
Very often, gender sensitive approaches are not considered when designing counterterrorism policy. This means that efforts to respond to processes such as ‘radicalization’ often misunderstand their gendered aspects and thus have a limited chance of being effective. Other issues include reintegrating women into society, after being involved with violent extremist or terrorist groups, without offering them adequate rehabilitation or disengagement pathways. This is because women are assumed to not be security threats on the one hand, and also because addressing women’s experiences whether as victims or perpetrators of violence, or both — is often not considered a priority. A lack of support, whether on the part of the state or within the community may put them at a greater risk of recidivism or alienation.
On the other hand, when gender sensitive approaches are considered, they tend to rely on a gender stereotypical ‘maternalist logic’ which defers women’s participation in countering and prevention work predominantly to the domestic field as mothers and wives. This view obscures the many important roles women play as leaders, negotiators and much more.
The research I am conducting examines the persistence of these gendered norms and how they have evolved in relation to countering and prevention work over the last two decades. The case study of returning ISIS foreign fighters is one that I examine in detail. Although women’s presence in terrorist groups is nothing new, their clear visibility in ISIS challenged existing gendered logics and heralded the urgent requirement for an effective gender sensitive counterterrorism response that not only prioritizes security needs, but that is grounded in human rights principles. Analysis of ISIS demonstrates that women’s roles and experiences are complex and contradictory; they are likely to have been victims of violence at the hands of the organization but this does not preclude their ability to be violent themselves.
Until very recently, a poor understanding of women’s presence and experiences within terrorist organizations has produced an incomplete picture of female motivations and recruitment pathways into terrorism. This has had a bearing on how threat perceptions have been understood and ultimately how counterterrorism responses have been constructed.
This said, there has been a (slowly) growing recognition in the international environment of how women can and do contribute towards reducing and countering violent extremism. Initiatives vary at local and national levels, and internationally policy tools such as implementing different UNSCRs are utilized to ensure recognition. Often, these initiatives emphasize the links between empowering women and reducing the threat to international security. Despite this emphasis on women’s empowerment, it remains important to ensure that the links drawn do not instrumentalize women’s rights for national security objectives.
Thus, one of the most interesting and under-researched challenges currently facing those responsible for designing and implementing counterterrorism policy and practice is how to integrate the female experiences of terrorism and counterterrorism without essentializing women or contributing to the reproduction of stereotypes about women in terrorism. There is a clear requirement to grow the academic literature and to encourage more empirical feminist research on counterterrorism which can thoughtfully inform the development of future policies and practices that engage with women’s perspectives, experiences and requirements.
Sofia Patel is a PhD researcher at the Department of War Studies, KCL. She is also a non-resident fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra.
New Voices in Global Security is a collaborative blog series between the School of Security Studies, King’s College London, and International Affairs. Drawing on cutting edge research, the blog series highlights diverse empirical, methodological and theoretical approaches to understanding global security and engages with questions of equality, diversity and inclusion within the discipline. Contributions are based on the New Voices event series — organized and chaired by Dr Amanda Chisholm, School Equality, Diversity and Inclusion lead — which promotes the research of PhD students and Early Career Researchers (ECRs) working both within and beyond the School of Security Studies.
