Gendering ISIS and Mapping the Role of Women

Abstract

Apart from the strategic implications of the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), women’s role in the phenomenon seeks special attention and the central questions remain as follows: How is women’s role perceived in ISIS? Are they active agents or voiceless victims? The article aims to take up four fold tasks to theoretically map the ISIS phenomenon from a gendered lens. First, it examines the existing theoretical positions on locating women vis-à-vis conflict scenarios. Second, it analyzes the conditions of women under ISIS and tries to explore how it impacts women’s lives. This throws light upon three avatars of women in the ISIS phenomenon: women as victims, resistors, and perpetrators. Third, the article shows how women are perceived under ISIS. And fourth, it looks at the feminization of militancy under the strict ISIS diktats and explains how structural violence persists under ISIS. It concludes that women can be seen as both active agents and voiceless victims and their roles cannot be judged within a monolithic frame as their roles are multilayered and situational. Rather than looking at women in any linear manner, it is plausible to look at the complex realities of their everyday life.