Attitudes towards female suicide bombers in Palestine and Tamil Sri Lanka

Abstract

Although female suicide bombing has been occurring since the mid-1980s, in recent years, the phenomenon has significantly increased. As of July 2014, women are estimated to have carried out approximately 30% of all suicide attacks. According to a number of terrorism experts, the main reason why female-initiated bombing is increasing is significantly due to people empathising with the phenomenon. However, very little research has attempted to study the ways people in the general population perceive female suicide attacks. Instead, existing research, by and large, tends to postulate public perceptions from knowledge obtained in anecdotal or media-derived sources. In this pilot study, a newly devised survey was conducted to examine the attitudes of two population groups considerably represented by female suicide bombers: Palestinians and Tamil Sri Lankans. A total of 64 participants completed the self-administered questionnaire. The key finding from this survey was that the majority of respondents denounced female suicide bombing, yet considered female agency in line with altruistic rather than egoistic motives. Larger sample sizes are required to determine the attitudes of respondents in future research.