Insurgent Women: Female Combatants in Civil Wars

Why do women go to war in non-state armed groups? Despite the reality that female combatants exist the world over, we still know relatively little about who these women are, what motivates them to take up arms, how they are utilized by armed groups, and what happens to them when war ends. Through a comparative analysis of women's participation in different non-state armed groups, Insurgent Women addresses women's involvement in civil war at three different points in the conflict lifecycle: recruitment, conflict participation, and conflict resolution. By examining the ongoing civil war in Ukraine, the conflicts in the Kurdish regions of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, and the civil war in Colombia, the authors find that there is no single profile of a female combatant. Rather, women's roles in and motivations for joining insurgent groups vary. The practical and theoretical implications of Insurgent Women suggest that policymakers and scholars must pay more attention to the complex motivations and roles that female combatants play in waging war in order to secure peace. This is an accessible and timely work that will be a useful introduction to another side of contemporary conflict.

Jessica Trisko Darden is an assistant professor in the School of International Service at American University and from 2017 to 2019 a Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Alexis Henshaw is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Troy University and author of Why Women Rebel.

Ora Szekely is an associate professor of political science at Clark University and author of The Politics of Militant Group Survival in the Middle East.