Most terrorists are men, points out Morgan in The Demon Lover: On the Sexuality of Terrorism (1989). Even though the stock image of a terrorist is a man in a ski mask, considerations of terrorists as men are often ignored, and discussions of terrorism as a political strategy about masculinity are typically overlooked. Terrorism—that act most explicit in its violent aggression, most obvious in its destructive aims and most hideously spectacular in its headlines—in fact makes men invisible. Terrorist manifestos, media representations of terrorists and current policy debates over the causes and consequences of terrorism all typically de-gender terrorism.
The connections between men, masculinity and terrorism are beginning to be examined. Scholars argue that all terrorist acts should be seen as connected, understood in a global context of shrinking economies, shifting gender roles, increased militarisation and expansive media, and defined as extreme forms of men’s violence ranging from abuse to bombings. War has traditionally been a male initiation rite and proving ground where men battle with one another over the ideals of masculinity like courage and strength. Yet, unlike traditional wars over national borders or natural resources, terrorism may be a war over the symbolic meanings of who men are, how they should behave and what they think they deserve. These theorists claim terrorist men use hyperaggressive and ultra-violent means to maintain the sense of entitlement and privilege that gender dominance has historically bestowed.
Media images: men, women and degendered terrorism
Portrayed in news coverage as psychotic, barbaric or unexplainable, terrorism gets degendered. For example, since the bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the United States on 11 September 2001, there has yet to be one full exploration of men and masculinity in relation to terrorism (Rasmusson 2005). So nearly exclusive is the connection between gender and terrorism that it goes unmentioned except when terrorists are women, who are then explicitly named, as in ‘female suicide bomber’. Rare in comparison, attacks by women are treated in accounts that typically begin with the expectation that terrorists are men, then skipping over that original story to relay a story of alarming gender-equality in terrorist activity. Shocking and titillating, these accounts channel an analysis of gender away from the centre of the story—men and masculinity.
The media-driven, American-led ‘War on Terror’ was presented as the theatre in which men and masculinity were staged. After 9/11, Western manhood was put to the test, Lorber claims, as men were called upon to avenge the brutality against the US and assert both their own manhood and a national and international alliance among men as brethren (Lorber 2002). Journalism highlighted the courage of macho men in uniform—fire-fighters, police officers, rescue workers—yet never discussed the ever-present issue of men and masculinity.
First, media’s focus on women as new terrorists, weeping widows, mourning mothers, wives of soldiers, or oppressed victims under fundamentalist regimes privileges masculine norms of authority, rationality, strength and decision-making. Many scholars have criticised the discussions of Muslim women’s veiling as signs of their degradation and their culture’s atavism (Sarikakis 2002). Furthermore, both Lorber and Sarikakis argue that anti-terror protectionist rhetoric and patriotic propaganda invoke gendered notions of fear to increase public suspicion and state power to fight terrorist activity.
Second, masculinity is bolstered by media images that pit the presumably savage and backwards manliness of terrorists against that of the clean-cut and civilised elected leaders charged with stopping them. The good masculinity of Western men was hailed over the bad masculinity of terrorists—non-Western men of colour from developing nations, religious zealots, fanatic ideologues and oppressors of women. Gendered images and news stories erased the contributions of women, people of colour and the reality of working-class labour in New York City. Furthermore, this simple segregation of ‘good guys’ from ‘evil doers’ rendered other forms of masculinity invisible. ‘Forgotten in this picture of heroes and victims were the poor, non-White, working-class men, the cooks, dishwashers, and busboys of the World Trade Center restaurant, the mail handlers and maintenance personnel of the building—many of whom were immigrants,’ writes Lorber. ‘Their masculinity was not valued enough to be called heroic’ (Lorber 2002:385). In addition, rarely does the public see gay men, men with disabilities or men who weep for their loved ones in media representations of terrorism.
Dying to be a man: domestic and international terrorism
It is too simple to assert that terrorists are either lone wolf psychopaths or pathetic chaps with low-self esteem. Essentialist and stereotypical explanations that men are driven ‘naturally’ to war and violence due to aggression-inducing testosterone or because they have ‘always been the hunters’ must also be eschewed. Instead, some theorists maintain that an analysis is necessary of terrorists’ own masculine identity and experiences of manhood, on the one hand, and of the power imbalances and inequities between the world’s men, on the other. Terrorism should be framed, they say, as an ideological reinvestment in strict gender roles, especially in a masculinity rooted in aggression, violence and domination. Ideologies of strict sexual difference through gender segregation in social practice, and often law, also nurture terrorists. Furthermore, terrorism may bolster masculinity that is perceived to be in danger or lost. Braudy, in From Chimlry to Tenorism (2003), recounts how perceptions of masculinity are based on the perceived need for war. In a historical examination, he claims that the nostalgic appeal of ‘warrior masculinity’ inspires men to take up terrorism as a route back to the ancient virtues of the brave hero. Whether they call themselves soldiers of God, or keepers of traditional values, or protectors of racial purity, according to Braudy, all these men are gender militants (Braudy 2003:543). Terrorism, then, is a new occupation that calls men forth to define themselves as manly. And, as more young boys are taught that the way to be a real man is to prepare to die for one’s cause, terrorism cyclically continues to exploit men’s fears and anxieties about masculinity.
As ideals of masculinity are increasingly unattainable—fierce independence, physical toughness, moral resolution, emotional asce-ticism and decisive manliness—incidents of domestic and international terrorism increase. Shor (2002) describes ‘militarised masculinity’ as a cultural, political and industrial enterprise that contributes to terrorism. When men are trained to kill as instruments of their nation’s military and are disillusioned by the dwindling prospects of making it in civilian life, they may become terrorists. Examining their writings, Kimmel shows that Oklahoma bomber and white supremacist McVeigh and al-Quaeda member Atta similarly complained about the erosion of masculine ideals. McVeigh wrote two years before he bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City, decrying the difficulty of being a breadwinner and achieving the American Dream. Atta, the suspected strategist and pilot of the first plane to hit the World Trade Center, left carnally obsessed burial plans that stipulated that no women should attend his funeral. Kimmel concludes, ‘lt is from such gendered shame that mass murderers are made’ (Kimmel 2002:12).
Terrorists, then, appear dissatisfied as men. They perceive themselves to be struggling and are striving to achieve dominance as men. Personal feelings of loss, desperation and disenfranchisement at a time of material, moral and political uncertainty may conduce to terrorism. In addition to stringent ideals of masculinity, terrorist men are compellingly aware of relationships of power and domination. Kimmel theorises that terrorism can be viewed as a showdown between dominant men with economic, educational and other institutional advantages, and subordinated men of minoritised masculinities where each ‘side’ depicts the other as the wrong kind of man. Subordinate men ‘as martyrs’ may believe they can become dominant men. What unites all terrorists, according to these theorists, is their acceptance of strict codes of masculinity, their sense of entitlement, their anger at thwarted ambitions and their desperate need to blame others for failure. ‘Central to their political ideology is the recovery of manhood from the emasculating politics of globalisation’ (Kimmel2002:11).
Gender war and global backlash
These theorists write about terrorism as a gender war involving men’s struggle for power and control. Terrorist men often report that their people have been sidelined by global shifts in power, capital and opportunity or that their ‘traditional culture’ has been corrupted by contemporary values, mass media or moral degradation. And, as other citizens who were once disadvantaged gain greater social recognition and legal rights, terrorists may be resentful against women, homosexuals and racial and ethnic minorities because they are believed to have stolen men’s rightful place at the head of the world’s table. Thus, some theorists discuss, terrorist men may be exacting revenge on a society they think has betrayed them even as they crusade as righteous avengers. They use terrorism as a repressive and regressive route back to an imagined bygone era of prosperity and certainty when men knew they were men and women needed to be saved by them. Thus terrorism may be a form of global backlash. As such, it always plays catch-up to reclaim manhood when traditional routes to it are perceived as lost.
As men define it: terrorism and men’s violence
Who is a terrorist? Who is most likely to be the target of terrorist attack? Who responds to terrorism? Who decides what qualifies as a terrorist attack? Mostly, the answer to all these questions is: men. Just as men have the most to gain by using terror for the acquisition of political power and control, it is men who define terrorism. Certainly, defining terrorism has always depended on perspective. For example, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Differentiating liberationist struggles for self-determination from terrorism, or civil rights clashes from terrorism, or revolutionary activism from terrorism depends on who commands the context. Furthermore, the words ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ are often invoked as a rhetorical strategy for certain political and social purposes. To be sure, if those who are the object of attack are also the ones who control the language and access to the media, then ‘terrorism’ is likely the term to be used. Simply said: terrorism is a discourse controlled by men, a meaningmaking imagery system intended to matter to men, and political violence perpetrated mostly by men against a backdrop of dominating forces such as globalisation, capitalism, consolidating multi-national corporations, new postcolonial governments and transnational media, which are also mostly ruled by men (Rasmusson 2005).
Working to redefine terrorism, some theorists expand common representations and understandings of political violence to include a wide range of men’s violence based on intimidation. A lot of what men do could, subsequently, be considered terrorist activity: schoolyard bullying, school shootings, fraternity hazing, stalking and sexual harassment, rape, child abuse and domestic violence, racist profiling and white supremacy, gang violence, anti-gay hate crimes, threatening reproductive health clinics and assassinating abortion providers, militias, foreign occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide, holocausts and the torture of prisoners of war and detainees in military prisons. Lutz (2004), for instance, in ‘Living room terrorists’ refers to domestic violence as a form of domestic terrorism by pointing out the increasing rates of abuse within American military families since 9/11. Similarly concerned with sexualised violence against women, Sheffield’s ‘Sexual terrorism’ (1987) identifies any use of violence and fear that helps maintain male control and domination of females. In fact, the sensationalised images of hostage-taking, weapon-wielding insurgents may work to normalise the far more prevalent everyday but less newsworthy campaign of terror that many men lead on their families, loved ones, children and marginalised ‘others’ such as women, racial and ethnic and sexual minorities. Terrorism should be added to the list of ‘isms’—racism, sexism, heterosexism, ethnocentrism, imperialism, etc.—as a hate-based form of oppression perpetuated by those who desire to maintain dominance over others.
Unmask terrorism and make men visible
The recent rush to follow developments in terrorism around the world is accompanied by the hope that defining, identifying and isolating terrorism’s origins can prevent it. Yet terrorism’s connections to men and masculinity are often overlooked and ignored. And this oversight deflects analytical attention, policy formulation and political action. Some social historians and cultural theorists unmask terrorist men and make the gendered nature of terrorism visible. If terrorism continues, and continues mostly at the hands of men, then men and masculinity should be at the root of all discussions about, analyses of, policies for and reactions to terrorism, they argue. Future analysis of terrorists and terrorism should also continue complicated and thorough discussions of gender and rightly pose relevant questions of geopolitics, nationalism, natural resources like oil, racial and ethnic strife, religion and fundamentalism, imperialism, poverty and military technology. Ultimately, seeing terrorism through a lens of masculinity may aid prospects for non-violence, peace and global stability.
References and further reading
Braudy, L. (2003) From Chivalry to Terrorism, New York: Knopf.
Kimmel, M. (2002) ‘Gender, class, and terrorism’, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 8 February: B11–12.
Lorber, J. (2002) ‘Heroes, warriors, and burqas’, Sociological Forum, 17 (3):377–96.
Lutz, C. (2004) ‘Living room terrorists’, The Women’s Keview qf Books, 5 (February):17–18.
Morgan, R. [1989] (2001) The Demon Lover, New York: Washington Square.
Rasmusson, S.L. (2005) ‘Masculinity and Fahrenheit 911, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7 (1):137–41.
Sarikakis, K. (2002) ‘Violence, militarism, terrorism’, Feminist Media Studies, 2 (1):151–4.
Sheffield, C. (1987) ‘Sexual terrorism’, in B.B. Hess and M.M.Ferree (eds) Analysing Gender, London: Sage, pp. 171–89.
