Overview Of Laura Sjoberg's Definition Of Gender

This essay will use Laura Sjoberg's definition of gender, which states, “While sex categorisation is a part of gender analysis, gender is often described as a social construct … constructed by a particular culture … because people agree to behave as if it exists or to follow certain conventional rules” 1.

Women in terrorism are typically a contentious subject in history, partly because the history of terrorism has been connected with male terrorists as offenders and often women as victims, not as violent individuals. Hence the gender constructions for women terrorists were conflated with sexuality, feminism and violence. Other factors impacted responses to terrorism such as religious beliefs, for instance, Joan the Arc is considered a heroic

Often a controversial topic, yet important in assessing responses to terrorism. While history records that many of the women married to ISIS terrorists joined under duress and thus did not participate in any activities. However, the majority of these women appear to have participated in terrorist activities, such as "supporting their husbands in the preparation and execution of violence"3. Nonetheless, many responses to terrorism evaluate the accountability of these women. For example, Greenfield investigates how gender constructs for ISIS brides have resulted in mixed responses to terrorism. If young brides, for example, be held accountable for ISIS's actions if they were promised "free health care or a perfect life". As Greenfield explains, if such women were persuaded into recruitment, their exploitation should elicit a victim-blaming response rather than a victim-blaming response. However, there is still a limited capacity for forgiveness in terrorist responses, and as Sjoberg and Gentry suggest, women's violence will continue to be portrayed through stereotypes of "Mother, Monster, or Whore."4. Such concepts reaffirm a response to terrorism in which the underlying nature of "loyalty to men, violent pathological acts, and sexual deviance" is surrounded by gender disparities. 5. Understanding gender dimensions in terrorist responses

Jean Elshtain for instance, has suggested the boundaries between men as “just warriors” and women as “beautiful souls”. Male terrorists are associated with clichés such as violent, strong, or warriors; yet it is far more frequent to categorise any male in history as aggressive than a woman. Similarly, to the female view, males are also bound to a ‘common profile’, typically categorised as “mad, male, minor, Muslim”. Further dissection into Islamic terrorism is required, for example, Martini undertakes a study of the responses to terrorism between men and women in ISIS flowing from the blur between the construction of "women as peaceful, life-givers - they become violent life-takers" Martini discovers that ISIS brides were allocated a "pre(determined) gender" that was "brides" rather than "women with a cause," and that these women were strictly regarded "combatants brides." Many of these ISIS brides were viewed as needing liberation from Western women, whereas males were portrayed in a stereotypical manner9. Hence, a women’s agency was hence limited to the frame of marriage, yet men continued to be labelled as ‘brave or epic”. Hence, ISIS brides, were subject to a gendered role whereby their actions and aims were meaningless, whilst men held a historical background limited to no motivation beyond wishing to ‘fight’. Another Pearson study of female combatants'