Discursive and Political Deployments by/of the 2002 Palestinian Women Suicide Bombers/Martyrs

Citation:

Hasso, Frances S. 2005. “Discursive and Political Deployments by/of the 2002 Palestinian Women Suicide Bombers/Martyrs.” Feminist Review 81 (1): 23–51.

Author: Frances S. Hasso

Abstract:

This paper focuses on representations by and deployments of the four Palestinian women who during the first four months of 2002 killed themselves in organized attacks against Israeli military personnel or civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories or Israel. The paper addresses the manner in which these militant women produced and situated themselves as gendered-political subjects, and argues that their self-representations and acts were deployed by individuals and groups in the region to reflect and articulate other gendered-political subjectivities that at times undermined or rearticulated patriarchal religio-nationalist understandings of gender and women in relation to corporeality, authenticity, and community. The data analysed include photographs, narrative representations in television and newspaper media, the messages the women left behind, and secondary sources.

Keywords: women, masculinity, suicide bombers

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, Gender, Women, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Media, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Non-State Armed Groups Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Israel, Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories

Year: 2005