Sisters of the Caliphate: Media and the Women of Isis
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Journal of Vincentian Social Action Volume 4 Issue 2 WARS, CONFLICTS, AND THE Article 7 MARGINALIZATION OF DISSENT September 2019 SISTERS OF THE CALIPHATE: MEDIA AND THE WOMEN OF ISIS Kathleen German [email protected] Rosemary Pennington Miami University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.stjohns.edu/jovsa Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, Business Commons, Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Disability and Equity in Education Commons, Educational Methods Commons, Law Commons, Life Sciences Commons, Medicine and Health Sciences Commons, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons, and the Urban Studies and Planning Commons Recommended Citation German, Kathleen and Pennington, Rosemary (2019) "SISTERS OF THE CALIPHATE: MEDIA AND THE WOMEN OF ISIS," Journal of Vincentian Social Action: Vol. 4 : Iss. 2 , Article 7. Available at: https://scholar.stjohns.edu/jovsa/vol4/iss2/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by St. John's Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Vincentian Social Action by an authorized editor of St. John's Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SISTERS OF THE CALIPHATE: MEDIA AND THE WOMEN OF ISIS Kathleen German Rosemary Pennington omen have long been viewed as the “weaker The “liberation” offered by ISIS can seem Wsex”–more peace-loving and passive than like an escape from both the ghettoized men. However, clashes in Sri Lanka and Northern status of Islam in the West as well as the Ireland have shown that women are both willing restrictive cultural mores of many Muslim and able to participate in violent conflict (Alison, countries; just as crucially, it can also 2004; Cheldelin & Eliatamby, 2011). In some seem like a legitimate response to being Muslim communities, women have historically victimized by U.S.-led wars that promise been excluded from combat through religious female empowerment but deliver widespread sanctions as David Cook (2005) notes: “Classical destruction. (p. 125) Islamic sources are fairly negative about the role of The perception that Islam itself is under threat also women in jihad” (p. 383). Even so, Muslim women serves to motivate some women to join terrorist are increasingly finding their way to battlefields groups (Ali, 2006). Though Western news stories and combat zones. This trend first became about female recruits to ISIS often apparent in conflicts in more frame them as naive individuals secular Muslim societies such as “Though the experience of duped by deceptive recruiters, Chechnya and Palestine, but even scholars such as Kniep (2016) highly conservative Al Qaeda women during conflict has and Zakaria (2015) argue that, in (Cook, 2005) and the Islamic increasingly become an area of order to understand how women State (Mironova, 2019, February are recruited to ISIS, researchers 20) have begun to embrace the focus for scholars, these studies must consider how the choice to idea of the female fighter. often consider women only join might seem like a reasonable Katherine Kniep (2016) posits through the lens of victimhood, political option for these women. that women who are drawn obscuring their experiences as Scholars must consider the appeal to jihad view the calling as of expanded opportunities to agents, perpetrators, or even emancipatory in nature. Miranda women who participate in the Alison (2003) confirms this active participants.” Islamic State. conclusion in her study of the Though the experience of women Tamil Tigers, noting that some during conflict has increasingly women joined the group as a way to fight back become an area of focus for scholars, these studies against their oppression at the hands of Sri Lankan often consider women only through the lens authorities. The promise of gender equality was of victimhood, obscuring their experiences as one reason women joined rebel forces in the agents, perpetrators, or even active participants. Eritrean fight for independence (Bernal, 2000), Considering the range of women’s participation as while Katarina von Knop (2007) suggests that for suicide bombers, front-line soldiers, propagandists, some female terrorists, engaging violence is an and home-front supporters, more nuanced exercise of power, a way to escape an oppressive approaches should be taken to the study of the society. Escaping oppression may motivate women varied roles of women in conflict. This essay who join ISIS. Rafia Zakaria (2015) writes that: JoVSA • Volume 4, Issue 2 • Fall 2019 Sisters of the Caliphate: Media and the Women of ISIS 37 specifically examines the recruitment to and roles (Siegel, 2019, August 22). Whether this new leader of women in the Islamic State. It does so through can sustain a resurgence of the group’s power and an examination of the scholarship on female retake territory remains to be seen. fighters in order to contextualize the women of In the past, as ISIS fighting forces have dwindled, ISIS. To understand how ISIS targets women, recruitment increased, especially through internet we conducted a close textual reading of internet forums (Hanoush, 2015, November 21; Klausen, recruitment material which provides a basis 2015; Melhern, 2015, November/December). for understanding the ways ISIS has worked to Women were especially targeted as mothers, convince women to join the Islamic State.1 This wives, medical professionals, business operators, essay ends with a suggestion that scholars and farmers, and online recruiters spreading the others interested in the experience of women in message of jihad (Auerbach, 2014). They not have, conflict move away from overly simplistic framings until recently, been used extensively in combat which suggest women have little to no agency. Our as the Qur’an exempts women from the duty to essay, and the work of other scholars, suggests the participate in armed jihad (Hasan, 2004); women opposite. have also been prohibited from joining front-line THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN ISIS fighting by Ayman al-Zawahiri, once Al-Qaeda’s second in command and Yussufal-Ayyiri, leader The departure of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 of the Saudi organization (Buril, 2017; Cook, introduced instability in the country that allowed 2005; Lahoud, 2010, February 26). However, there political corruption and sectarian violence to has been a resurgence in women’s involvement emerge. Taking advantage of the Syrian civil war, in international terrorist activities in some parts the group that came to be known as ISIS filled of the world (Ali, 2006; Cook, 2005; von Knop, the void created by the lack of a viable central 2007). Some speculated that the current, more government or security infrastructure in the region desperate position of the caliphate will lead to (Engel, 2015, February 11; Ghosh, 2014, August a greater reliance on women in active combat 14; Wood, 2015, March). In 2014 ISIS declared roles (Al-Saleh, 2014, January 5; Buril, 2017; its territory a caliphate and fielded approximately Speckhard, 2013, September 24). The women who 40,000 fighters, including as many as 30,000 might fill those roles have often been recruited foreign troops from North Africa, Europe, and the to the Islamic State via ISIS’s extensive media United States. By early 2019, ISIS had been driven infrastructure. out of a large percentage of its territory, including crucial cities like Tikrit, Ramadi, Mosul, and Hajin ISIS MEDIA PRACTICES by a coalition of American, European, and Arab In its short but dramatic history, ISIS has made nations working with the Iraqi army. Analysts newsworthy use of social media for a variety of warn, however, that even with its loss of physical purposes from soliciting financing, recruiting territory “...the Islamic State is likely to remain fighters, establishing legitimacy, and instilling a powerful terrorist force” using its vast cyber fear in its adversaries. The group has produced networks to recruit supporters and surge forces as professional promotional media that are needed (Callimachi, 2018, September 12). In fact, distributed in a wide variety of formats including the Islamic State’s attacks from the areas it had online magazines, blogs, internet forums, and seemingly been pushed from actually increased in YouTube videos. And these messages reverberate 2018 (Giglio, 2018, October 31). However, the across the internet, spawning others such as the group’s future does seem a bit murkier. As of this “one billion campaign” which calls on Muslims writing, reports have begun circulating that Abu to post messages, photos and videos on Twitter, Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS’s ailing leader, has handed Instagram and YouTube in support of ISIS. over control of the Islamic State to a successor JoVSA • Volume 4, Issue 2 • Fall 2019 Sisters of the Caliphate: Media and the Women of ISIS 38 They also use more informal, but still highly messages position ISIS as a real agent of change orchestrated social media such as initiating a grounded in social justice that avenges the long- Twitter hashtag in Arabic which translates as suffering faithful. To date, counter-messages #theFridayofsupportingISIS in which supporters have largely been ineffective because they do wave ISIS flags and upload videos. At its height it not address ISIS’s fundamental appeal to justice is estimated that there were some 45,000 active (Cohen, 2009; Mazzetti & Gordon, 2015, June 12; ISIS Twitter accounts (Brookings Institution’s Sorenson, 2014; Stevens & Neumann, 2009). Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World,