ABSTRACT
Individual offenders who have perpetrated individual acts of terrorism in the United States have predominantly been male. This chapter is concerned with the analytical problems that emerge when orthodox economics is applied to the ‘gender gap’. The standard model of constrained utility maximisation leads to an explanation for the gender gap that focuses on the asymmetry in the opportunities or incentives available to females to perpetrate terrorism. This is supplemented by the addition of gender difference variables to the standard utility model. This treatment of opportunities and choices is open to criticism. In particular, an argument that asymmetric opportunities may account for the gender gap is, at best, an incomplete explanation and, second, the addition of gender variables to the utility function cannot account for the complex interactions between gender and other relevant variables such as identity, race, class and power structure. Although gender is the primary characteristic of any identifiable gender gap, recent research acknowledges that the centrality of gender in the analysis of the gender gap in criminal and violent behaviour overshadows a more complex set of interactions.
