Salience identity of women in terrorism

Abstract

Recently the involvement of women in terrorism has increased through their various roles, from facilitators, recruiters, nurses, couriers to suicide bombers and frontline fighters in acts of terrorism. Even though jihad limit the involvement of women in action, the rising of ISIS in 2014 has increased their involvement in terrorism as jihadists. Women are given various passive and active roles such as being the perpetrators of suicide bombers. Violent behavior by women is said to be a deviation because of gender stereotypes that exist in society and shift the view that women are victims. This study used a qualitative descriptive method with a literature study to describe the identity and role that women have in terrorism. Furthermore, this study used a theoretical analysis of Sheldon Stryker's Identity Theory (1980) with the salience identity to find out how to counter women involvement in terrorism in profiling practice to decide the methods to hadling it. The results of the study showed that the salience identity of women is still not considered as the main character in terrorism so that women are often considered as victims.The involvement of women in the role is marked by the roles they carry that affect their social behavior according to the role they play as terrorists. There are various identities of women that will have an impact on policies to deal with terrorism aimed at women, they must look at the roles and identities they have in accordance with the proportions of their salience identities.

Jihad and Interpretation of Religious Texts on Female Terrorists in Indonesia

“…According to the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (2017), there is a shift in the strategy adopted by terrorist organizations to carry out attacks, where bomb executors were initially mostly carried out by men and are now mostly undertaken by women. This is due to the fact that men are easier to detect when carrying out attacks, as opposed to women, who are more exclusive with a gentle and tactful nature, making it difficult to spot (Hartana, 2017;Nurfahmi et al, 2021).…”

“…Secondly, the Islamic State has an issue with trapping women, thus, their identity has become a new strategy in terrorist acts. Women's roles are considered effective since their strong sense of feminism with naturally affectionate, caring, and non-violent characteristics can accommodate terrorist acts (Amelia et al, 2020;Galehan, 2019;Hartana, 2017;Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, 2017;Natsir, 2015;Nurfahmi, Rifai, & Marsingga, 2021). Thirdly, the strong patriarchism based on religious messages nearly encourages the doctrine of extremism for women, leading extremism as an ideology to a strong effect on women with family relations, making it difficult for them to escape from the ideology extremism (Arlinsa, 2022;Muttaqin, 2020;Taskarina, 2020).…”