ABSTRACT
In most patriarchal societies, which represent the majority of the 192 member states of the United Nations, women have historically played a minor role in politics as compared to their male counterparts. Where women do play a role in politics, it is usually a subordinate role to male leaders. The media have arguably reinforced beliefs and stereotypes in masculine cultures about the role women ought to play in society. This includes but is not limited to the roles actresses play in movies and the way women are portrayed in advertising. Few exceptions to this exist in politics. Today, less than 10 percent of the 192 countries have a female president or prime minister. Bangladesh, with a Muslim population of over 80 percent, is one country with a female prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wajed. During the 2008 presidential election campaign in the United States, a
country that is classified by cultural scholars as masculine, both the liberal and conservative media were criticized for unfair treatment of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Gender bias still exists even in the most developed countries. As in traditional nation-state politics, women have historically played a minor
role in terrorism. Women joining resistance movements is a process in the making, not an overnight change. Their involvement in direct terrorist attacks has been limited although not absent. (As is noted below, this varies depending on the part of the world being analyzed.) In terrorism, women have traditionally played a more nurturing role, offering moral support to sons and husbands who join the movement. In Palestine, only after the first female martyr, or shahida, committed a suicide attack in 2002 and the “Palestinian street” made a heroine out of her, did Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claim responsibility for the attack. And this is how change, slowly but surely, creeps into historically masculine societies by accepting and welcoming nontraditional roles for women.1
