Female suicide bombers – Male suicide bombing? looking for Gender in reporting the suicide bombings of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Abstract

The primary aim of this article is to bring together questions of both the gender representation (notions of femininity and masculinity) and the gender order (existing social relations and power structures) of Palestinian suicide bombing, and thereby to offer a rather unusual perspective on a sensitive topic within what is generally an overanalysed conflict. It is based on the way female suicide bombers have been represented in the media in the first half of 2002, supplemented by publications in 2003 and January 2004. Print and online articles constitute the main basis of interpretation that aims to bring gender as an analytical tool into the continuing debate on suicide bombing.