Latest in Women
Declining availability of abortion care will make it more difficult for women in uniform to keep their healthcare decisions private, and the military's policies may reinforce harmful stereotypes.
Regulations proposed by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, if adopted, would significantly reduce access to asylum protection for people fleeing persecution through significant changes to substantive law and due process procedural rights.
Editor’s Note: The Islamic State’s crimes against women are well known, but it has also managed to appeal to women to join the fight directly or otherwise support the group. Too often, however, governments fail to recognize this risk. Kiriloi Ingram of the University of Queensland draws on her fieldwork in the Philippines to argue that governments and civil society groups need to do a far better job of recognizing the dangers women can pose while also empowering them to help counter violent extremism.
Daniel Byman
***
When Tashfeen Malik, along with her husband Syed Farook, killed 14 people in San Bernardino a year ago, she provided a stark reminder about the growing involvement of women in jihadist terrorism in the West. Since the attack, women have continued to advance jihadi efforts in the United States and abroad. While few follow in Malik’s footsteps and pursue violent plots, many disseminate propaganda, donate resources, or travel abroad to support jihadist groups, and the numbers are on the rise.
This episode of the Jihadology Podcast features an interview with Erin Saltman on the report she co-authored with Melanie Smith, “‘Till Martyrdom Do Us Part’: Gender and the ISIS Phenomenon” (PDF). The conversation covered a variety of topics related to female participation in jihadism including: