WUNRN
Women Suicide Bombers: Narratives of
Violence - Book Review
By
Julie V.G. Rajan
Allie
Shier - McGill University
Suicide terrorism is a
controversial tactic that has been employed by rebel groups for many centuries
(Zedalis 2004: 3). Since the 1980s, suicide bombing has become a commonly used
tactic in terrorist missions, and more women have become involved in the
organization and execution of these operations. With the growing participation
of women in suicide bombings, recent public and scholarly debates have focused
on the circumstances and motivations of women bombers. In Women Suicide Bombers: Narratives
of Violence, V. G.
Julie Rajan acknowledges that these different realms express diverse and often
contrasting views regarding the motivations and characteristics of women
suicide bombers.
Rajan argues that the dominant
frameworks in the West as well as in cultures and societies condoning suicide
bombings perpetuate stereotypes about women bombers and females in general.
Western discourses tend to promote ideologies of patriarchy by emphasizing the
gender and femininity of female bombers and by undermining their agency.
Conversely, rebel groups and Third World countries tend to present these women
as active agents in their martyrdom operations. Both of these opposing
representations are problematic, as they confine women bombers into rigid
categories and disregard the complex motivations and circumstances that propel
them to commit these acts. It is crucial that both of these narratives are
examined and critiqued in order to move away from these sweeping
generalizations about women suicide bombers.
The book demonstrates how
Western narratives often depict women bombers as being irrational, socially
deviant, motivated by their emotions, androgynous, and subversive, in order to
uphold the dominant patriarchal ideology. These patriarchal narratives are
employed precisely because women bombers challenge general ideologies and
prevailing notions of patriarchy. To exemplify the stereotypes that are often
employed in Western narratives of suicide bombers, Rajan refers to Western
journalist Barbara Victor’s coverage of the renowned case of Wafa Idris, the
first female suicide bomber in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Victor
recounts that “[Idris] tried to hold the door open with one foot while holding
the mirror so she could apply her make-up, the knapsack got stuck… killing
Idris instantly” (p. 83). This coverage illustrates how the West often portrays
women suicide bombers as being careless, inept, and focused on aspects of
femininity such as physical appearance.
Western narratives further
marginalize the agency of women suicide bombers by depicting them as being
victims of their cultures and of male-led rebel groups. These narratives assume
that women are coerced, raped, and forced to become suicide bombers. Rajan,
however, notes a paradox: “in highlighting how women bombers are objectified by
their cultures and male-led rebel groups, these narratives themselves follow a
similar pattern that also
objectifies the very
same women” (p. 185).
The author also critiques rebel
movements’ discourse. She observes that rebel movements in places like
Chechnya, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka overemphasize the agencies of these women in
terms of their martyrdom operations, while maintaining the hegemony of the
males in the rebel groups. These narratives tend to “misguide interpretations
into women bombers’ social agencies by submerging and dismissing the violent
experiences of and attitudes against women affected by the rebel movements and
cultures themselves” (p. 187).
Rajan returns to the case of
Wafa Idris to illustrate the skewed representation of women suicide bombers in
nations supporting these terrorist activities. While Western sources define
Idris as socially deviant and dangerous, the Palestinian media celebrate her
actions and regard her as “the ultimate
form of motherhood: the
mother of Palestine” (p. 248). Palestinian media portrayed Idris as acting
within normative gender roles and discourses of nationalism, perpetuating
stereotypes that inaccurately portray the women bombers.
The book uses case studies,
testimonials, historical accounts, and references to academic sources to detail
the fundamental role that patriarchy plays in the social construction of women
suicide bombers across the globe. It examines the many different cultural,
historical, and societal factors that have contributed to this, and how they
each intersect. The main argument is well supported, with the author bringing
in various examples from Western media of profiling and stereotyping in which
women suicide bombers were portrayed as dangerous, violent, and foreign. That
said, one of the book’s weaknesses is its neglect to present sufficient
statistical data to support the claim that portrayals are by in large distorted
or are in fact incorrect. In fact, one might argue that Western assumptions
about women suicide bombers can be verified in bombers’ testimonials. For
example, Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled justified her actions by saying
that she “was deprived of [her] home, [her] family, children living like [her]
were living in a miserable situation” (Post 2007:24). It seems that at least in
some cases female terrorists really were victims of abuse, which may partly
explain why they agreed to participate in a terrorist mission.
While the book does possess few
weaknesses, the author identifies the limitations of her study. For example,
Rajan notes the lack of video testimonials for some terrorist groups such as
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Because her study was highly reliant on
theoretical and empirical data, this imposes limits on her analysis of the
motivations of female suicide bombers.
In conclusion, Rajan’s book
teaches us that in order to abandon the prevailing patriarchal frames of women
suicide bombers, we must adopt a more critical reading of Western and rebel-led
groups’ reports about these women. If we wish to develop a better understanding
of the motivations and circumstances that propel women to become suicide
bombers, further research in this field is needed. We must pay greater
attention to statistics and to the unique personal, societal, cultural, and
religious factors that intersect and influence the participation of women in
suicide bombing missions.
Reference List
Post, J. M.
2007. The
Mind of the Terrorist. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
A.
Shier/Societies Without Borders 8:1 (2013) 169-172
Rajan, J. V. G.
2011. Women
Suicide Bombers: Narratives of Violence. New York:
Routledge.
Zedalis, D. D.
2004. Female
Suicide Bombers. Hawaii:
University Press of the Pacific.