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Home Publications Memoranda Female Suicide Bombers: Dying for Equality?

Female Suicide Bombers: Dying for Equality?

Memorandum No. 84, Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, August 2006

Yoram Schweitzer

The involvement of women in suicide bombings invites a host of operational, tactical, psychological, and sociological questions as to how much this phenomenon shares or departs from the general phenomenon of suicide terrorism. Is there a distinct category of female suicide terrorism? In addition, how much is this gender-related phenomenon in fact a function of gender-related issues? More specifically, to what extent is feminism on the agenda of the women themselves or those who send them? Are these bombers in fact dying for equality? Alternatively, is this feminist agenda primarily a Western prism artificially imposed on a non-Western context?


Contents

Introduction
Yoram Schweitzer

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The Palestinian Shahida: National Patriotism, Islamic Feminism, or Social Crisis
Mira Tzoreff
Palestinian Female Suicide Bombers: Reality vs. Myth
Yoram Schweitzer
The Palestinian and Israeli Media on Female Suicide Terrorists
Avi Issacharoff
Female Martyrdom: The Ultimate Embodiment of Islamic Existence?
Rivka Yadlin

The Russian-Chechen Conflict

Black Widows: The Chechen Female Suicide Terrorists
Anne Speckhard and Khapta Akhmedova

The Sri Lankan-Tamil Conflict

Female Black Tigers: A Different Breed of Cat?
Arjuna Gunawardena

Criminology and the Study of Female Suicide Terrorism

Criminological Perspectives on Female Suicide Terrorism
Maria Alvanou

The opinions expressed in INSS publications are the authors’ alone.
Publication Series Memoranda
TopicsTerrorism and Low Intensity Conflict

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  • Research

    • Topics
      • Israel and the Global Powers
      • Israel-United States Relations
      • Glazer Israel-China Policy Center
      • Russia
      • Europe
      • Iran and the Shi'ite Axis
      • Iran
      • The Israel–Iran War
      • Lebanon and Hezbollah
      • Syria
      • Yemen and the Houthi Movement
      • Iraq and the Iraqi Shiite Militias
      • Conflict to Agreements
      • Israeli-Palestinian Relations
      • Hamas and the Gaza Strip
      • Peace Agreements and Normalization in the Middle East
      • Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States
      • Turkey
      • Egypt
      • Jordan
      • Israel’s National Security Policy
      • Military and Strategic Affairs
      • Societal Resilience and the Israeli Society
      • Jewish-Arab Relations in Israel
      • Climate, Infrastructure and Energy
      • Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict
      • Cross-Arena Research
      • Data Analytics Center
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