Political Science
Fighting about Women: Ideologies of Gender in the Syrian Civil War
Document Type
Article
Abstract
This article seeks to map and explain the sudden increase in the appearance of female combatants in the propaganda distributed by various parties to the Syrian civil war. Based on interviews and the analysis of online propaganda, the article argues that the importance of ideologies of gender to two of the four main participants in the Syrian civil war (specifically, the Kurdish Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, PYD, and the Islamic State, or ISIS) has rendered gender ideology an unusually salient point of ideological cleavage in the Syrian context. This has meant that other parties to the conflict, for whom gender ideology is less important, are able to easily signal their position in relation to other conflict participants by means of policies or actions relating to women's participation in the conflict.
Publication Title
Journal of Global Security Studies
Publication Date
7-2020
Volume
5
Issue
3
First Page
408
Last Page
426
ISSN
2057-3189
DOI
10.1093/jogss/ogz018
Keywords
civil war, gender, Middle East, Syria
Repository Citation
Szekely, Ora, "Fighting about Women: Ideologies of Gender in the Syrian Civil War" (2020). Political Science. 101.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_political_science/101
