Skip to footer

Women’s role in a post-9/11 world

In the long struggle against terrorism, women need not be only victims or perpetrators. The world has learned to recruit them as positive actors against violent jihad.

|
AP
Women in Kabul, Afghanistan, gather Sept. 4 to demand their rights under the Taliban rule.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

Soon after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, many commentators noted a particular aspect of the 19 hijackers: None were women. That simplistic view of women as anti-terrorist has lessened over the past 20 years. Hundreds of women have since conducted suicide bombings or attempted them for extremist groups. Many more have recruited young fighters, especially for the Islamic State group. Yet just as compelling since 9/11 has been another trend: More women are leading efforts to defeat terrorism, often by giving early warnings of an attack or promoting counternarratives to violent jihadi ideology within families and communities.

In Morocco, for example, Muslim women have been trained as preachers to espouse moderate interpretations of religious teachings. In Kenya, a civil society group called Sisters Without Borders trains women-led organizations in helping governments prevent terrorist attacks. In Sudan, women led protests that ousted a terrorist-promoting dictator. Female protesters in Iran have demanded that leaders stop backing foreign terrorist groups.

“Because of their distinctive access and influence, women are crucial antiterrorism messengers in schools, religious institutions, social environments, and local government,” Jamille Bigio, a former fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and now a top USAID official, told Congress two years ago. Women are particularly sensitive to signs of radicalization, says Ms. Bigio, “because attacks on their rights and physical autonomy are often the first indication of a rise in fundamentalism.”

At the United Nations, meanwhile, the Security Council has passed resolutions encouraging nations to empower women in the prevention of violent extremism, especially as mediators and negotiators for peace. “After nearly two decades of ongoing efforts to defeat terrorism, the international community has learned that it must engage women as positive actors in their comprehensive strategies to tackle drivers of violent extremism and counter radicalization,” states a commentary by the United States Institute of Peace.

Twenty years on, one lesson from 9/11 is that women can and should be leaders for peace. The more they are empowered to save innocent lives, the more they will be recognized for saving innocent lives.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Women’s role in a post-9/11 world
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2021/0907/Women-s-role-in-a-post-9-11-world
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe