Future of Women in Violent Extremism

Summary

On May 1, 2018, the George Washington University's Program on Extremism hosted a discussion with Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security (GIWPS) examining the future of women's contribution to violent extremist groups in the U.S. and abroad. Our panelists drew from their work as scholars and practitioners to forecast emerging threats and anticipated the challenges stakeholders might face in preventing, detecting, and countering women's involvement in violent extremism. By learning from the past to prepare for the future, discussants highlighted the utility of crosscutting, and intersectional thinking across the arenas of counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, and counter-extremism. To promote gender-conscious programming, policies, and threat assessments, panelists confronted the recurring dissonance between the perceptions and realities of women's participation in violent extremist movements around the world.

The panel was moderated by Program on Extremism Research Fellow Audrey Alexander and featured commentary from: 

• Dr. Nimmi Gowrinathan, Founder and Director of the Politics of Sexual Violence Initiative and Visiting Research Professor at the Colin Powell Center for Global and Civic Leadership at City College New York
• Kristy Schindler, Intelligence Analyst at the National Counterterrorism Center
• Jamille Bigio, Senior Fellow for Women and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations
• Hilary Matfess, the author of Women and the War on Boko Haram and Ph.D. student at Yale

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