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ABSTRACT
Recent efforts aimed at understanding women’s contributions to nonstate armed groups have produced large-scale data sets on female combatants (Wood and Thomas 2017) and more limited data on women’s roles as supporters and leaders in armed groups (Henshaw 2016; 2017, Loken 2018). The present study aims to build on this literature by providing new data on the scope of women’s leadership in insurgent groups. While existing quantitative literature has focused mostly on the experience of female combatants, we argue that the presence of women in leadership roles is crucial to understanding how gender might influence the outcomes of insurgency. We introduce new data on over 200 insurgent groups active since World War II. While our analysis confirms earlier small-sample work demonstrating women’s presence in leadership roles, a qualitative analysis reveals that leadership is often gendered–revealing patterns of tokenization and tracking women to low-prestige leadership roles. At the same time, our findings challenge past research on jihadist organizations, showing limited expansion in the authority of women.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. El Tiempo, “La historia de la jefa del Eln que se apareció en Caracas.”
2. Salavarrieta, “Una perla negra.”
3. ELN Paz, ELN Paz Responde.
4. Wood and Thomas, “Women on the Frontline.”
5. Henshaw, Why Women Rebel; and Loken, “Women in War.”
6. Bates, Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa.
7. Gurr, “Minorities, Nationalists, and Islamists”; and Tarrow, Power in Movement.
8. Seymour and Gallagher Cunningham, “Identity Issues and Civil War.”
9. Valentino, “Final Solutions”; Weinstein, “Resources and the Information Problem in Rebel Recruitment”; Gagnon, The Myth of Ethnic War; and Gurr, “Minorities, Nationalists, and Islamists.”
10. Sambanis, “Do Ethnic and Nonethnic Civil Wars Have the Same Causes?”; and Weinstein, “Resources and the Information Problem in Rebel Recruitment.”
11. Tiernay, “Killing Kony”; Gallagher Cunningham and Sawyer, “Conflict Resolution and the Election of Rebel Leaders”; and Gallagher Cunningham, Loyle, and Young, “The Organization of Rebellion.”
12. See, e.g., Tétreault, Women and Revolution in Africa, Asia, and the New World.
13. Goldstein, War and Gender; Mazurana, “Women, Girls, and Non-State Armed Opposition Groups”; Henshaw, “Where Women Rebel: Patterns of Women’s Participation in Armed Rebel Groups 1990–2008”; Wood and Thomas, “Women on the Frontline”; and Loken, “Women in War.”
14. Cragin and Daly, Women as Terrorists; and Henshaw, Why Women Rebel.
15. Alison, “Cogs in the Wheel? Women in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam”; Alison, “Women as Agents of Political Violence”; Åhäll, “Motherhood, Myth, and Gendered Agency in Political Violence”; Sjoberg and Gentry, Mothers, Monsters, Whores; and Friedman, “Remnants of a Checkered Past.”
16. Wood and Thomas, “Women on the Frontline”; Thomas and Wood, “The Social Origins of Female Combatants”; Loken, “Women in War”; Braithwaite and Ruiz, “Female Combatants, Forced Recruitment, and Civil Conflict Outcomes.”
17. Cunningham, “Cross-Regional Trends in Female Terrorism”; Thomas and Bond, “Women’s Participation in Violent Political Organizations”; Henshaw, “Why Women Rebel,” 1 August 2016; Loken, “Women in War”; and Wood and Thomas, “Women on the Frontline.”
18. Mazurana, “Women, Girls, and Non-State Armed Opposition Groups”; Thomas and Bond, “Women’s Participation in Violent Political Organizations”; Henshaw, Why Women Rebel, 2017; Loken, “Women in War: Militancy, Legitimacy, and Rebel Success”; Wood and Thomas, “Women on the Frontline”; and Trisko Darden, Henshaw, and Szekely, Insurgent Women.
19. Examples include the practice of forced abortion and forced contraception in Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and the policing of women’s clothing and sexual relationships by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Alison, “Cogs in the Wheel? Women in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam”; Human Rights Watch, “Colombia”; Alison, “Women as Agents of Political Violence”; Herrera and Porch, “‘Like Going to a Fiesta’–The Role of Female Fighters in Colombia’s FARC-EP”; and Mazurana, “Women, Girls, and Non-State Armed Opposition Groups.”
20. Tétreault, Women and Revolution in Africa, Asia, and the New World; Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought; Eager, From Freedom Fighters to Terrorists; Wood and Thomas, “Women on the Frontline”; and Loken, “Women in War.”
21. Alison, “Cogs in the Wheel? Women in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam”; Londoño and Nieto, Mujeres no contadas; Viterna, “Pulled, Pushed, and Persuaded”; MacKenzie, Female Soldiers in Sierra Leone, chap. 3; Viterna, Women in War; Mazurana, “Women, Girls, and Non-State Armed Opposition Groups”; and Friedman, “Remnants of a Checkered Past.”
22. Enloe, Maneuvers, chap. 7; Goldstein, War and Gender, chap. 2; Bloom, Dying Dying to Kill; Davis, “Evolution of the Global Jihad”; Thomas and Bond, “Women’s Participation in Violent Political Organizations”; Eggert, “Women Fighters in the “Islamic State” and Al-Qaida in Iraq”; Thomas and Wood, “The Social Origins of Female Combatants”; Loken, “Women in War”; and Trisko Darden, Henshaw, and Szekely, Insurgent Women, chap. 1.
23. Thomas and Wood, “The Social Origins of Female Combatants”; Braithwaite and Ruiz, “Female Combatants, Forced Recruitment, and Civil Conflict Outcomes”; and Loken, “Women in War.”
24. Goldstein, War and Gender, chap. 5; and MacKenzie, Beyond the Band of Brothers.
25. UN Women, “Women’s Participation in Peace Negotiations”; and Henshaw, “Where Women Rebel.”
26. Herrera and Porch, “Like Going to a Fiesta.”
27. Enloe, Maneuvers, 285.
28. Caprioli, “Gendered Conflict”; Caprioli and Boyer, “Gender, Violence, and International Crisis”; and Koch and Fulton, “In the Defense of Women.”
29. Paxton and Hughes, Women, Politics, and Power, chap. 3; Towns and Niklasson, “Gender, International Status, and Ambassador Appointments”; and Barnes and O’Brien, “Defending the Realm.”
30. Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation; and Paxton and Hughes, Women, Politics, and Power, 216.
31. Paxton and Hughes, Women, Politics, and Power, chap. 3.
32. Kolb and Coolidge, “Her Place at the Table”; and Fukuyama, “Women and the Evolution of World Politics.”
33. Eisenstein, Sexual Decoys.
34. Henshaw, “Where Women Rebel”; and Wood and Thomas, “Women on the Frontline.”
35. Griset and Mahan, Terrorism in Perspective, chap. 7.
36. Cragin and Daly, Women as Terrorists, chap. 6.
37. Cragin and Daly, 100; Loken, “Women in War.”
38. Cragin and Daly, Women as Terrorists, 97; Henshaw, Why Women Rebel, 2017, 108–10; and Loken, ‘Women in War.”
39. Loken, “Women in War.”
40. In using this definition, we also harmonize with and can build upon the earlier leadership data compiled by Henshaw (2017).
41. For each organization, we consulted a minimum of five sources.
42. See note 5 above.
43. See note 34 above.
44. Trisko Darden, Henshaw, and Szekely, Insurgent Women, chap. 3.
45. Molyneux, “Mobilization without Emancipation?”; and Morales and Linero, “Las Cifras de Los 10 Años de Desmovilizaciones.”
46. Table 2 utilizes the WARD’s “best estimate” measure of female combatants.
47. Wood and Thomas, “Women on the Frontline,” 4, data appendix.
48. See note 36 above..
49. Henshaw, Why Women Rebel, 2017; and Wood and Thomas, “Women on the Frontline.”
50. Caprioli, “Gendered Conflict”; Caprioli, “Primed for Violence”; Thomas and Bond, “Women’s Participation in Violent Political Organizations”; and Thomas and Wood, “The Social Origins of Female Combatants.”
51. The Political Terror Scale value is based on the Amnesty International coding for the country/year in question.
52. Wood and Gibney, “The Political Terror Scale (PTS)”; and Henshaw, Why Women Rebel, 2017, 103–4.
53. See note 49 above.
54. MacKenzie, Beyond the Band of Brothers, 50–51; and Goldstein, “Why Are You Trying to Destroy the Last Good Thing Men Have?”.
55. Cunningham, “Cross-Regional Trends in Female Terrorism”; Cragin and Daly, Women as Terrorists, chap. 7; Henshaw, Why Women Rebel, 2017; and Loken, “Women in War.”
56. Cunningham, “Cross-Regional Trends in Female Terrorism”; Henshaw, Why Women Rebel, 2017, chap. 6; and Loken, “Women in War.”
57. Davis, “Evolution of the Global Jihad”; and Eggert, “Women Fighters in the ‘Islamic State’ and Al-Qaida in Iraq.”
58. Wood and Thomas, “Women on the Frontline”; and Thomas and Wood, “The Social Origins of Female Combatants.”
59. See note 4 above.
60. Cragin and Daly, Women as Terrorists; Henshaw, Why Women Rebel, 2017, chap. 6; and Loken, “Women in War.”
61. Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium, “Umm Al-Rayan”; and Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium, “Al-Khansaa Brigade.”
62. Moaveni, “ISIS Women and Enforcers in Syria Recount Collaboration, Anguish and Escape.”
63. Moaveni.
64. Perešin, “Fatal Attraction”; and Counter Extremism Project, “ISIS’s Persecution of Women.”
65. Von Knop, “The Female Jihad.”
66. SATP, “Left Wing Extremist Group; Maoist Communist Centre (MCC)”; and Sen, “Class Struggle and Patriarchy – Women in the Maoist Movement.”
67. SATP, “Left Wing Extremist Group; Maoist Communist Centre (MCC).”
68. Itano, “The Sisters-in-Arms of Liberia’s War.”
69. Sjoberg and Gentry, “Reduced to Bad Sex”; Åhäll, “Motherhood, Myth, and Gendered Agency in Political Violence”; and Sjoberg and Gentry, Mothers, Monsters, Whores.
70. Cold-Ravnkilde and Plambech, “Boko Haram”; Matfess, Women and the War on Boko Haram; and Brussels International Center, “Nigeria.”
71. Scott, “Samantha Lewthwaite.”
72. Ghitis, “In Bitter Irony, Jihadi Women Serve as Useful Propaganda”; The Carter Center, “The Women in Daesh”; Bezhan, “Pakistani Taliban Chases Jihadi Pack With New Women’s Magazine”; and Ghosh and Basnett, “Analysis of Rumiyah Magazine.”
73. Dearden, “Isis Is Calling on Women to Fight and Launch Terror Attacks for the First Time.”
74. The Carter Center, “The Women in Daesh,” 7.
75. Portugal, “Voices from the War”; Cragin and Daly, Women as Terrorists, 86–87, 93; and Alison, Women and Political Violence.
76. Utas, “West-African Warscapes.”
77. Brown, Afghanistan – Is There Hope for Peace?
78. Mertz, “Civil War in Afghanistan”; and Refugee Review Tribunal (Australia), “RRT Research Response No. AFG17439.”
79. Refugee Review Tribunal (Australia), “RRT Research Response No. AFG17439”; and Refugee Review Tribunal (Australia).
80. Teklu, “The Women’s Movement in Tigray (1976-Present).”
81. Shaw et al., Women’s Lives around the World.
82. BDK, “Vita Kimpa.”
83. See, e.g., Covington, “Embodied Histories, Danced Religions, Performed Politics,” 119, 136; and Thornton, The Kongolese Saint Anthony, 1684–1706, who recount the role of Vita Kimpa as part of a Catholic movement, the Antonian Movement, based on the narrative that she was possessed by the spirit of St. Anthony. Conspicuously, the BDK’s profile of her omits her ties to Catholicism.
84. Covington-Ward, Gesture and Power, chap. 6; and Covington, “Embodied Histories, Danced Religions, Performed Politics.”
85. Allen, “Understanding Alice.”
86. Dubal, Against Humanity.
87. Allen, “Understanding Alice,” 373.
88. Van Acker, “Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army”; and Allen, “Understanding Alice.”
89. Allen, “Understanding Alice”; and Behrend, Alice Lakwena & the Holy Spirits.
90. Allen, “Understanding Alice”; Behrend, Alice Lakwena & the Holy Spirits; and Dubal, Against Humanity.
91. Behrend, Alice Lakwena & the Holy Spirits.
92. Rubin, “The Cult of Rajavi.”
93. Imphal Free Press, “RPF Refutes Lily Leima Arrest.”
94. Sjoberg and Gentry, Mothers, Monsters, Whores, chap. 4.
95. Åhäll, Sexing War/Policing Gender, 26.
96. Krook and O’Brien, “All the President’s Men?.”
97. Céspedes-Báez, “Gender Panic and the Failure of a Peace Agreement.”
98. Humanas Colombia and CIASE, Vivencias, Aportes Y Reconocimiento, 32–35.
99. Sandino Palmera, “El Feminismo en las FARC-EP”; Boutron, “Colombian Militants Have a New Plan for the Country, and It’s Called ‘Insurgent Feminism’”; Phelan, “Insurgent Feminism and Colombia’s New Peace.”
100. Anderlini, “Women at the Peace Table”; Chang et al., “Women Leading Peace”; and Humanas Colombia and CIASE, Vivencias, Aportes Y Reconocimiento.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Alexis Henshaw
Alexis Henshaw is an assistant professor of Political Science at Troy University, and was previously visiting assistant professor at Duke University.
June Eric-Udorie
June Eric-Udorie, Hannah Godefa, Kathryn Howley, Cat Jeon, Elise Sweezy, and Katheryn Zhao are undergraduate students at Duke University.