Honour and shame as the fuel of terror : an analysis of the organisation Islamic state through a gender lens

Abstract

Over the past few months, violence against women by the organisation Islamic State has been widely documented, along with the departure of western female migrants to ISheld territories. While the numbers are relatively insignificant, the media misrepresents the figures due to the nature of headline-grabbing stories about war crimes, especially against women, and for most of the population whose primary source of information about war is the media, these stories represent their closest contacts with war. This research adopts a gendered lens to understand the rationality of IS in its specific targeting of women, the highly gendered society it has implemented and in particular the different roles women can have during the conflict. While women are typically depicted as victims or monsters by the media and government agencies, this research attempts to demonstrate that women can find agency in various situations and at different degrees, from survival to extreme violence.