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Jandakova, Elizabeth (2019) The extent of changing role of women participating in 'front line' terrorism: (women being accepted as suicide terrorists, violent and ruthless, devotion or struggle for equality). Masters thesis, London Metropolitan University.
Suicide attacks and suicide terrorism are an understudied social phenomenon within academia, particularly when it comes to women's involvement. The subject as a whole is not easy to understand within European culture, due to its different culture and subsequent position of women within society. This study aims to identify how the women's role has changed over the decades, why women join terrorist organisations and why they subsequently become suicide terrorists. In order to do so I will analyse Chechnya and the Black widows. Here suicide attacks represented a real mode of operation and the organisation itself also included women in suicide attack operations. I will analyse Black widows in line with cultural, political, economic, organisational and social-psychological factors. To do so I will use three-level analysis. I believe that the findings will confirm that suicide terrorism represents a complicated social phenomenon where the central motivation, in general, is political, more precisely nationalistic. As for women’s involvement, the strength and effectiveness of suicide terrorism lies within the connection of other motives - cultural, economic and organisational as well as psychological. Therefore, there simply is not one straight answer in what causes suicide terrorism or what motivates women to become suicide terrorists, instead both have a multicausal nature. As this study will confirm, the reasons for which women join terrorist organisations vary, however, none include weakness or earlier inability to perform acts of violence. Furthermore, the study should confirm that the role of women has evolved from supporting roles - those of mothers and wives to frontline positions, those of leaders with power.
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