July 13, 2011 • 18 mins
Most acts of terrorism are carried out by men, but more and more women are becoming suicide bombers. Join Cristen and Molly as they explore the causes of this trend, why women commit to these causes and how their reasons may differ from those of men.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told
you from house Stuff works dot com? Hold on, Welcome
to the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristen Christen.
A few weeks ago, we did an episode on human
(00:22):
trafficking and you talked about how you sent me pictures
of kittens or kittens doing adorable things, because I do
love that immensely, and a lot of our listeners showed
in and let us know about this site called zoo
borns dot com, which is where you see um baby
animals that are born in zoos. And we should clarify
that I sent you these photos for anyone who hasn't listened,
(00:43):
because you had to write the article and a super
depressing yeah on human trafficking, and it was incredibly depressing.
So we always said, as palate cleanser, look at pictures
with cats our listeners and let us know about zoo borns.
So I bring it up because we got another downer today,
uh female suicide bombers, and so I just want everyone
to know that zoo borns dot com exists. If you
(01:03):
need to look at some baby animals halfway through after
this midway do you know whatever? And to think those listeners,
so babiesoo animals to suicide bombers, yes, because a lot
of times when we hear about suicide bombers in the press,
it's typically mint. Yeah. But in recent years especially, there
has been a rise in the number of female terrorists
(01:26):
and female suicide bombers, and terrorists organizations are really starting
to um see the advantages, the very dark advantages of
using women, because when you have female suicide bombers, it
always gets more media attention. Um and you know, some
of these terrorists groups operate within communities that aren't known
(01:49):
for gender equality. Women are often second class citizens in
some of these countries and these groups. So it's kind
of interesting phenomenon to talk about because you know, people
have to one or why are these groups that are
otherwise so demeaning to women allowing women to do this?
Because you know, it's considered a great honor for a
man to undertake this mission to to be a suicide bomber,
(02:13):
and so uh, female suicide bombers, like some of our
Lady Killer episodes, it seems to go against everything we
know about this nurturing aspect of women and the like.
So everyone's got a theory as to why women uh
strop a bomb on themselves and try and hurt people.
So let's talk about why the suicide groups want, why
the terrorist groups want them, why the women might do it,
and the aftermath. So just to give you a little
(02:36):
idea about UM women women's roles in suicide bombing and
terrorist organizations. The first female suicide bomber was a seventeen
year old Palestinian girl who drove a truck into an
Israeli convoy in Lebanon in nineteen five. And since then
the number of suicide bombing attacks UM has only increased
(02:58):
and it is has been called the weapon of choice
today for terrorists organizations in particular UM. And since that
first bombing in UM, the number of women participating in
this has only gone up. Like I just said, for instance,
since two thousand to eight, eight Palestinian women have attempted
(03:20):
suicide bombings, although just eight of them have been successful.
And then in two thousand and ten we had the
really UM infamous I should say, I was about to
say famous UM, but there was the Moscow bombing and
it was carried out by two female terrorists from czech Nia,
the Black Widows. The Black Widows who are also involved
(03:41):
in UM. I think it was two thousand two when
they held that school hostage, so they're pretty well known
female terrorists ARM. But for UM, any terrorist group, a
suicide bombing, like you said, Kristen, can be a weapon
of choice because it's simple, it's low cost UM. You
kill a lot of people and cause a lot of
damage at one time, UM compared to other sort of
(04:04):
things you could carry out, And you don't have to
worry about the person involved giving away your secrets because
the success of a suicide mission depends on them dying UM.
And there's an immense impact. In the media. People always
want to cover this because it seems so insane that
someone would strop a bomb on themselves and the blow
people up. So, like Kristen said, if you use a woman,
(04:26):
you're going to have double the impact that you might
have just abandoned it because it's so unheard of and
you know, unconceivable, inconceivable. Yeah, And just to give you
an idea of how effective suicide bombing is UM, they're
now used by seventeen terrorists organizations in fourteen countries. In
terms of casualties, suicide attacks are the most efficient form
(04:47):
of terrorism. From two thousand one, suicide attacks accounting for
three percent of terrorists incidents but caused half of the
total deaths due to terrorism. UM and if that's UH,
setting aside what happened on nine eleven, so terrorist organizations
are using them. And these are organizations UM from the
(05:09):
Syrian Socialist National Party to the Tamil Tiger's sister group
which is the Birds of Paradise. We have the Black
Widows which we mentioned UM in Chechnia, UM, there are
female suicide bombers associated with hamas a lot of them.
And they're saying that these women might be better tools
because they're not being checked as thoroughly as the men are.
(05:31):
They might have a better chance of getting through a checkpoint.
They may have greater opportunity to get, you know, right
in the thick of things than perhaps email us. If
you're wearing a big long robe and a veil, it's
easy to hide weapons under there. So it's probably necessary
that a lot of groups adapt their UM terrorism guidelines
to account for growing numbers of women performing terrorist activities.
(05:54):
Right Statistically, a female suicide bomber will kill nine victims
compared to the five point five average victims that a
male suicide bomber will kill. These are very dark statistics,
we're talking borns dot com. But also, um, like you said,
what they can hide more under their clothes. For instance,
women in Muslim societies can hide twelve pounds of explosives
(06:17):
under under their garments. Um. And they also, like you said,
are also just less likely to be stopped by authorities,
although it seems like government organizations are now starting to
pay more and law enforcement agencies are starting to pay
more attention to women's rising roles in these terrorists organizations.
(06:39):
So who are these women? Do they differ in their
motives from male suisib bombers Because the thing you always
hear about a male suicide bombers he's been promised great
riches in the afterlife and seventy two virgins seventy two virgins.
Women do not get seventy two versions. Rather, there are
theories that they become the most beautiful of the seventy
two virgins, but they're only going to be there, uh
(07:00):
to please their husband. Basically, you get your husband in
the afterlife, you become really beautiful, and you don't have
to deal with children, and and you will still be
married to your husband. Yeah. And there are a number
of theories as to what motivates women in these societies
to um participate in suicide bombings. For instance, Maya Bloom
(07:20):
who wrote Bombshell the Many Faces of Female Terrorists. So
there are five reasons why women will participate with suicide bombings,
and which would be revenge, redemption, relationships, respect, and rape.
And she says that that relationship cause is the most potent.
A lot of times they will have some kind of
connection to either you know, enacting revenge for someone who's
(07:44):
been killed, a relative or a husband or brother who's
been killed, or they are involved with someone in the
terrorists organization. They have some kind of connection. But then
this aspect of redemption and rape um is also very
compelled calling because in these societies, suicide bombing might be
(08:04):
sort of their only alternative. Yeah, a lot of these
women sometimes when they look into their back stories, they
may have had, for an example, an affair, and they
will offer the choice to be you know, stoned to
death for the affair or to blow themselves up and
perhaps gain some redemption from their affair through greater glory
in terms of the terrorists cause. Um or they may
(08:24):
have been raped, which is seen as this huge act
of dishonor in these countries, and they can regain some
of their family's honor by by doing this. So they're saying,
there are always these motives that may have to deal
more with their with protected their family or honoring their family.
And other researchers are just like, maybe this is, you know,
a way we're attributing a sort of stereotypical female roles
to these women just to make ourselves feel better about it.
(08:47):
But Bloom is saying that, Um, you know, they're not
they're not coerced into this. This is a choice that
most of them do seem to make on their own,
either to regain their family's honor or to um, you know,
because they have really and ship to a known terrorist, right, Um,
instead of you know, just casting these girls as the
media often does, is you know, just naive under the
(09:08):
sway of male influence. Um. There's one estimate that female
suicide bombers will carry out attacks as part of a
military operation against an occupying force, and their motivation is
number one loyalty to a cause just like the men. Yeah,
I mean originally I think that when you see a
female suicide bomber, you think that she can't have that
sort of devotion to a cause above a family member
(09:30):
or you know, above her children, because we have this
idea that motherhood kind of trumps all and and that's
not in Bluma saying that's not true. That these women
are just as motivated by the injustice as they see
and in some cases maybe even more motivated because they
are mothers. Um. Sometimes the female suicide bombers are more
likely to target UH centers where women and children are
(09:53):
hanging out because they think if my if I can't
have children, that I don't want my enemy to have children.
And so in some cases they can be more damaged
into the civilian public than a male suicide bomber. Is
so as UM, different researchers and different agencies try to
sort out who might be targeted, what women might be
(10:13):
targeted for suicide bombing recruitment. UM, there are some mixed findings,
you know, that indicate how little we really still know
about female suicide bombers. For instance, there was an Israeli
study looking at female suicide bomber recruits from two thousand
to to two thousand five, and it found that thirty
(10:33):
three were college graduates. And this is a huge contrast
to the population of male suicide bombers, who tend to
be very young and very uneducated, okay, and who for
that reason are more likely to get swept up into
this extremist cause. But then we go to another study
that's looking at terrorist organizations kind of across the across
(10:56):
the map, and it says that like male suicide bomber,
the females are also tend to be younger and uneducated.
For instance, the black widow, one of the black widows
um who carried out that Moscow transit bombing was seventeen. Yeah,
but so we still don't know, and I don't think
that will be able to boil down, you know, just
one one very basic profile of a suicide bomber. Obviously,
(11:19):
these women are all bringing in different types of baggage
to this very extreme um act. Right, if they were
easy to profile, then maybe we wouldn't have the problem. Right,
But that's sort of the depressing thing about this is
that these women do have all these different forms of
baggage be it a dead husband, or be it a
rape in their past. They're trying to uh get get
off the family slate. Or they may be poor, they
(11:41):
maybe middle class. The thing about female suicide members is
they are harder to classify than the males. Maybe, like
Christen said, the males tend to be young and uneducated,
and um, the women seem to have a lot more
complicated reasons for this. And it's interesting that even though
these female suicide bombers are putting themselves up destroying their bodies,
(12:05):
you know, killing themselves for this cause alongside men, they
still face, um, these sexist double standards within terrorist organizations.
For instance, UM, there was a male suicide bomber who
was interviewed in prison, obviously an unsuccessful male suicide bomber,
(12:26):
who told him that he was really angry that his
sister had tried to carry out a suicide bombing as
well after she got a divorce, because obviously that would
you know, the suside bombing would provide some kind of
redemption for this shameful divorce. But he said he was
really angry with it because he said, quote, a woman
must not expose her body, and when a woman blows
(12:47):
herself up. Not all parts of her body become tiny
bits of flesh. Yeah, so he was upset that perhaps
her flesh was being uh, I was bringing to son
of the family just by being littered in the street
after them blowing up by a bomb. And uh, like
he said, they don't ever rise to the top in
terms of group leadership. And this is sort of it
kind of reminds me of our Mob episode, a Mob episode, Kristen,
(13:09):
where you know, they keep talking about the glass ceiling
for female terrorists, for the glass ceiling for lady mobsters,
and you're like, is this a glass ceiling we need
to be worried about. But the fact of the matter
is that women are playing these really important roles. I
mean that sounds weird to say, but women are playing
are trying to get involved with these groups for whatever reason,
(13:30):
and despite the fact that they do tend to be
more deadly, they never get to the top of a
leadership because of rules about whether women can be involved
in terrorist leadership. Right, they think that there might be
some female leadership in um terrorists arms of Hamas, but
not in al Qaida. Actually, al Zawahi has publicly said
(13:53):
when he was asked about the highest rank, you know,
al Qaida held by a woman, he said that there
were no women in the group. Now he's backpedaled on
that a little bit. But even though there might not
be female leadership in al Qaida, that does not mean
that the male leaders do not use women to form alliances. Specifically,
they will marry off their daughters. For instance, um Assama
(14:15):
bin Ladon and mala Omar appear to be married to
each other's daughters, and that well that would have been
when Laden was still alive. But yeah, I mean it's
it's this backpedaling does seem to happen the more they
need recruits. So it's almost like maybe the sign that
they're using more women could be a sign that participation
among the men might be dwindling off, because they're saying
(14:37):
that one of the best ways to recruit more men
is to get a woman to do it, and it's
sort of like step up or using women did to
be doing this. So I don't know if eventually the
idea that more women are getting involved will be a
sign that some of these groups are are losing power
over the men, or or you know, I don't think
anyone can John any conclusion at this point except that
attacks by these female terrorists are on the rise. So,
(14:59):
like you said, moll Um, this is kind of a
tricky topic to discuss because it's not like we want
to praise these women for breaking from ceiling, breaking through
these sexist glass ceilings of suicide bombing. But it's still something.
(15:19):
It's it's something compelling for us to follow because because
of the whole like redemption factor, because of what it
says about UM sort of the state of global terrorism
and how it has evolved. Uh So, something to keep
an eye out on, and also something to keep an
eye out on. Two in the media portrayals of these
female suicide bombers, you know, painting them as he's just
(15:41):
psychologically weak, naive young girls. No, I mean they're they're
pretty vicious. There was one UM study talking about how
these women are trained and their train alongside the men.
Well I'll probably separate from the men, but trained in
the same way as men and taught very intricate ways
to hand the weaponry to build bomb security explosives. Uh So,
(16:03):
these are these aren't exactly wilting flowers we're dealing with.
So if you have any thoughts to share with us
about this, send them our way. It's mom stuff at
how stuff works dot com. And let's read an email. Well,
I have an email here um from someone who wants
to be be anonymous because the story might you know, set
(16:26):
off alarm bells for someone and it's about, uh the episode,
how could you not know you were pregnan until the
baby came? And this person writes, I'm a family physician
and I want to tell you my best story on
the subject. I do not want my name, city, etcetera
revealed for patient privacy reasons, and for that reason, we
will not even tell you when the incident occurred. However,
I assure you it is totally true. I was working
in the E R Ambulatory care area on a weekend
(16:48):
when a young woman presented with crampy abdominal pain. She
was attended by her mother. As part of the evaluation
of pain, I performed a pelvic exam. W was immediately
evident that she was in labor with a fully dilated
service and having labor pains. She was so far in
de labored we did not have time to move her
into the labor and delivery area of the hospital. But
we're only able to get a procedure trade with the
appropriate instruments just in time for the baby to crown.
(17:09):
I delivered with the baby and otherwise uneventful fashion, laying
it on the young woman's belly while trying the cord.
As we wrapped the baby and tried to hand it
to the new mother, she and her mother became irate,
stating that we were trying to trick them into taking
someone else's child, and they were not going to allow
this elaborate fraud we perpetuated on them just to get
them to care for someone else's unwanted child. They were
thoroughly convinced that we were trying to pawn off someone
(17:31):
else's child on them, and then we were neglecting to
address and treat the true cause of her abdominal pain,
insisting there was no way the child was probably possibly hers.
Isn't that crazy? Christen? Is quite a story. The woman
had to go to the the psychiatry word and we don't know.
That's as far as as our listener knows what happened. Well,
I hope that she and the baby are okay. Well
(17:53):
on that note, if you have any stories is in
our way? Mom's stuff at how stuff works dot Com
is our email dress, or you can hit us up
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(18:14):
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(18:40):
brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told
you from house Stuff works dot com? Hold on, Welcome
to the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristen Christen.
A few weeks ago, we did an episode on human
(00:22):
trafficking and you talked about how you sent me pictures
of kittens or kittens doing adorable things, because I do
love that immensely, and a lot of our listeners showed
in and let us know about this site called zoo
borns dot com, which is where you see um baby
animals that are born in zoos. And we should clarify
that I sent you these photos for anyone who hasn't listened,
(00:43):
because you had to write the article and a super
depressing yeah on human trafficking, and it was incredibly depressing.
So we always said, as palate cleanser, look at pictures
with cats our listeners and let us know about zoo borns.
So I bring it up because we got another downer today,
uh female suicide bombers, and so I just want everyone
to know that zoo borns dot com exists. If you
(01:03):
need to look at some baby animals halfway through after
this midway do you know whatever? And to think those listeners,
so babiesoo animals to suicide bombers, yes, because a lot
of times when we hear about suicide bombers in the press,
it's typically mint. Yeah. But in recent years especially, there
has been a rise in the number of female terrorists
(01:26):
and female suicide bombers, and terrorists organizations are really starting
to um see the advantages, the very dark advantages of
using women, because when you have female suicide bombers, it
always gets more media attention. Um and you know, some
of these terrorists groups operate within communities that aren't known
(01:49):
for gender equality. Women are often second class citizens in
some of these countries and these groups. So it's kind
of interesting phenomenon to talk about because you know, people
have to one or why are these groups that are
otherwise so demeaning to women allowing women to do this?
Because you know, it's considered a great honor for a
man to undertake this mission to to be a suicide bomber,
(02:13):
and so uh, female suicide bombers, like some of our
Lady Killer episodes, it seems to go against everything we
know about this nurturing aspect of women and the like.
So everyone's got a theory as to why women uh
strop a bomb on themselves and try and hurt people.
So let's talk about why the suicide groups want, why
the terrorist groups want them, why the women might do it,
and the aftermath. So just to give you a little
(02:36):
idea about UM women women's roles in suicide bombing and
terrorist organizations. The first female suicide bomber was a seventeen
year old Palestinian girl who drove a truck into an
Israeli convoy in Lebanon in nineteen five. And since then
the number of suicide bombing attacks UM has only increased
(02:58):
and it is has been called the weapon of choice
today for terrorists organizations in particular UM. And since that
first bombing in UM, the number of women participating in
this has only gone up. Like I just said, for instance,
since two thousand to eight, eight Palestinian women have attempted
(03:20):
suicide bombings, although just eight of them have been successful.
And then in two thousand and ten we had the
really UM infamous I should say, I was about to
say famous UM, but there was the Moscow bombing and
it was carried out by two female terrorists from czech Nia,
the Black Widows. The Black Widows who are also involved
(03:41):
in UM. I think it was two thousand two when
they held that school hostage, so they're pretty well known
female terrorists ARM. But for UM, any terrorist group, a
suicide bombing, like you said, Kristen, can be a weapon
of choice because it's simple, it's low cost UM. You
kill a lot of people and cause a lot of
damage at one time, UM compared to other sort of
(04:04):
things you could carry out, And you don't have to
worry about the person involved giving away your secrets because
the success of a suicide mission depends on them dying UM.
And there's an immense impact. In the media. People always
want to cover this because it seems so insane that
someone would strop a bomb on themselves and the blow
people up. So, like Kristen said, if you use a woman,
(04:26):
you're going to have double the impact that you might
have just abandoned it because it's so unheard of and
you know, unconceivable, inconceivable. Yeah, And just to give you
an idea of how effective suicide bombing is UM, they're
now used by seventeen terrorists organizations in fourteen countries. In
terms of casualties, suicide attacks are the most efficient form
(04:47):
of terrorism. From two thousand one, suicide attacks accounting for
three percent of terrorists incidents but caused half of the
total deaths due to terrorism. UM and if that's UH,
setting aside what happened on nine eleven, so terrorist organizations
are using them. And these are organizations UM from the
(05:09):
Syrian Socialist National Party to the Tamil Tiger's sister group
which is the Birds of Paradise. We have the Black
Widows which we mentioned UM in Chechnia, UM, there are
female suicide bombers associated with hamas a lot of them.
And they're saying that these women might be better tools
because they're not being checked as thoroughly as the men are.
(05:31):
They might have a better chance of getting through a checkpoint.
They may have greater opportunity to get, you know, right
in the thick of things than perhaps email us. If
you're wearing a big long robe and a veil, it's
easy to hide weapons under there. So it's probably necessary
that a lot of groups adapt their UM terrorism guidelines
to account for growing numbers of women performing terrorist activities.
(05:54):
Right Statistically, a female suicide bomber will kill nine victims
compared to the five point five average victims that a
male suicide bomber will kill. These are very dark statistics,
we're talking borns dot com. But also, um, like you said,
what they can hide more under their clothes. For instance,
women in Muslim societies can hide twelve pounds of explosives
(06:17):
under under their garments. Um. And they also, like you said,
are also just less likely to be stopped by authorities,
although it seems like government organizations are now starting to
pay more and law enforcement agencies are starting to pay
more attention to women's rising roles in these terrorists organizations.
(06:39):
So who are these women? Do they differ in their
motives from male suisib bombers Because the thing you always
hear about a male suicide bombers he's been promised great
riches in the afterlife and seventy two virgins seventy two virgins.
Women do not get seventy two versions. Rather, there are
theories that they become the most beautiful of the seventy
two virgins, but they're only going to be there, uh
(07:00):
to please their husband. Basically, you get your husband in
the afterlife, you become really beautiful, and you don't have
to deal with children, and and you will still be
married to your husband. Yeah. And there are a number
of theories as to what motivates women in these societies
to um participate in suicide bombings. For instance, Maya Bloom
(07:20):
who wrote Bombshell the Many Faces of Female Terrorists. So
there are five reasons why women will participate with suicide bombings,
and which would be revenge, redemption, relationships, respect, and rape.
And she says that that relationship cause is the most potent.
A lot of times they will have some kind of
connection to either you know, enacting revenge for someone who's
(07:44):
been killed, a relative or a husband or brother who's
been killed, or they are involved with someone in the
terrorists organization. They have some kind of connection. But then
this aspect of redemption and rape um is also very
compelled calling because in these societies, suicide bombing might be
(08:04):
sort of their only alternative. Yeah, a lot of these
women sometimes when they look into their back stories, they
may have had, for an example, an affair, and they
will offer the choice to be you know, stoned to
death for the affair or to blow themselves up and
perhaps gain some redemption from their affair through greater glory
in terms of the terrorists cause. Um or they may
(08:24):
have been raped, which is seen as this huge act
of dishonor in these countries, and they can regain some
of their family's honor by by doing this. So they're saying,
there are always these motives that may have to deal
more with their with protected their family or honoring their family.
And other researchers are just like, maybe this is, you know,
a way we're attributing a sort of stereotypical female roles
to these women just to make ourselves feel better about it.
(08:47):
But Bloom is saying that, Um, you know, they're not
they're not coerced into this. This is a choice that
most of them do seem to make on their own,
either to regain their family's honor or to um, you know,
because they have really and ship to a known terrorist, right, Um,
instead of you know, just casting these girls as the
media often does, is you know, just naive under the
(09:08):
sway of male influence. Um. There's one estimate that female
suicide bombers will carry out attacks as part of a
military operation against an occupying force, and their motivation is
number one loyalty to a cause just like the men. Yeah,
I mean originally I think that when you see a
female suicide bomber, you think that she can't have that
sort of devotion to a cause above a family member
(09:30):
or you know, above her children, because we have this
idea that motherhood kind of trumps all and and that's
not in Bluma saying that's not true. That these women
are just as motivated by the injustice as they see
and in some cases maybe even more motivated because they
are mothers. Um. Sometimes the female suicide bombers are more
likely to target UH centers where women and children are
(09:53):
hanging out because they think if my if I can't
have children, that I don't want my enemy to have children.
And so in some cases they can be more damaged
into the civilian public than a male suicide bomber. Is
so as UM, different researchers and different agencies try to
sort out who might be targeted, what women might be
(10:13):
targeted for suicide bombing recruitment. UM, there are some mixed findings,
you know, that indicate how little we really still know
about female suicide bombers. For instance, there was an Israeli
study looking at female suicide bomber recruits from two thousand
to to two thousand five, and it found that thirty
(10:33):
three were college graduates. And this is a huge contrast
to the population of male suicide bombers, who tend to
be very young and very uneducated, okay, and who for
that reason are more likely to get swept up into
this extremist cause. But then we go to another study
that's looking at terrorist organizations kind of across the across
(10:56):
the map, and it says that like male suicide bomber,
the females are also tend to be younger and uneducated.
For instance, the black widow, one of the black widows
um who carried out that Moscow transit bombing was seventeen. Yeah,
but so we still don't know, and I don't think
that will be able to boil down, you know, just
one one very basic profile of a suicide bomber. Obviously,
(11:19):
these women are all bringing in different types of baggage
to this very extreme um act. Right, if they were
easy to profile, then maybe we wouldn't have the problem. Right,
But that's sort of the depressing thing about this is
that these women do have all these different forms of
baggage be it a dead husband, or be it a
rape in their past. They're trying to uh get get
off the family slate. Or they may be poor, they
(11:41):
maybe middle class. The thing about female suicide members is
they are harder to classify than the males. Maybe, like
Christen said, the males tend to be young and uneducated,
and um, the women seem to have a lot more
complicated reasons for this. And it's interesting that even though
these female suicide bombers are putting themselves up destroying their bodies,
(12:05):
you know, killing themselves for this cause alongside men, they
still face, um, these sexist double standards within terrorist organizations.
For instance, UM, there was a male suicide bomber who
was interviewed in prison, obviously an unsuccessful male suicide bomber,
(12:26):
who told him that he was really angry that his
sister had tried to carry out a suicide bombing as
well after she got a divorce, because obviously that would
you know, the suside bombing would provide some kind of
redemption for this shameful divorce. But he said he was
really angry with it because he said, quote, a woman
must not expose her body, and when a woman blows
(12:47):
herself up. Not all parts of her body become tiny
bits of flesh. Yeah, so he was upset that perhaps
her flesh was being uh, I was bringing to son
of the family just by being littered in the street
after them blowing up by a bomb. And uh, like
he said, they don't ever rise to the top in
terms of group leadership. And this is sort of it
kind of reminds me of our Mob episode, a Mob episode, Kristen,
(13:09):
where you know, they keep talking about the glass ceiling
for female terrorists, for the glass ceiling for lady mobsters,
and you're like, is this a glass ceiling we need
to be worried about. But the fact of the matter
is that women are playing these really important roles. I
mean that sounds weird to say, but women are playing
are trying to get involved with these groups for whatever reason,
(13:30):
and despite the fact that they do tend to be
more deadly, they never get to the top of a
leadership because of rules about whether women can be involved
in terrorist leadership. Right, they think that there might be
some female leadership in um terrorists arms of Hamas, but
not in al Qaida. Actually, al Zawahi has publicly said
(13:53):
when he was asked about the highest rank, you know,
al Qaida held by a woman, he said that there
were no women in the group. Now he's backpedaled on
that a little bit. But even though there might not
be female leadership in al Qaida, that does not mean
that the male leaders do not use women to form alliances. Specifically,
they will marry off their daughters. For instance, um Assama
(14:15):
bin Ladon and mala Omar appear to be married to
each other's daughters, and that well that would have been
when Laden was still alive. But yeah, I mean it's
it's this backpedaling does seem to happen the more they
need recruits. So it's almost like maybe the sign that
they're using more women could be a sign that participation
among the men might be dwindling off, because they're saying
(14:37):
that one of the best ways to recruit more men
is to get a woman to do it, and it's
sort of like step up or using women did to
be doing this. So I don't know if eventually the
idea that more women are getting involved will be a
sign that some of these groups are are losing power
over the men, or or you know, I don't think
anyone can John any conclusion at this point except that
attacks by these female terrorists are on the rise. So,
(14:59):
like you said, moll Um, this is kind of a
tricky topic to discuss because it's not like we want
to praise these women for breaking from ceiling, breaking through
these sexist glass ceilings of suicide bombing. But it's still something.
(15:19):
It's it's something compelling for us to follow because because
of the whole like redemption factor, because of what it
says about UM sort of the state of global terrorism
and how it has evolved. Uh So, something to keep
an eye out on, and also something to keep an
eye out on. Two in the media portrayals of these
female suicide bombers, you know, painting them as he's just
(15:41):
psychologically weak, naive young girls. No, I mean they're they're
pretty vicious. There was one UM study talking about how
these women are trained and their train alongside the men.
Well I'll probably separate from the men, but trained in
the same way as men and taught very intricate ways
to hand the weaponry to build bomb security explosives. Uh So,
(16:03):
these are these aren't exactly wilting flowers we're dealing with.
So if you have any thoughts to share with us
about this, send them our way. It's mom stuff at
how stuff works dot com. And let's read an email. Well,
I have an email here um from someone who wants
to be be anonymous because the story might you know, set
(16:26):
off alarm bells for someone and it's about, uh the episode,
how could you not know you were pregnan until the
baby came? And this person writes, I'm a family physician
and I want to tell you my best story on
the subject. I do not want my name, city, etcetera
revealed for patient privacy reasons, and for that reason, we
will not even tell you when the incident occurred. However,
I assure you it is totally true. I was working
in the E R Ambulatory care area on a weekend
(16:48):
when a young woman presented with crampy abdominal pain. She
was attended by her mother. As part of the evaluation
of pain, I performed a pelvic exam. W was immediately
evident that she was in labor with a fully dilated
service and having labor pains. She was so far in
de labored we did not have time to move her
into the labor and delivery area of the hospital. But
we're only able to get a procedure trade with the
appropriate instruments just in time for the baby to crown.
(17:09):
I delivered with the baby and otherwise uneventful fashion, laying
it on the young woman's belly while trying the cord.
As we wrapped the baby and tried to hand it
to the new mother, she and her mother became irate,
stating that we were trying to trick them into taking
someone else's child, and they were not going to allow
this elaborate fraud we perpetuated on them just to get
them to care for someone else's unwanted child. They were
thoroughly convinced that we were trying to pawn off someone
(17:31):
else's child on them, and then we were neglecting to
address and treat the true cause of her abdominal pain,
insisting there was no way the child was probably possibly hers.
Isn't that crazy? Christen? Is quite a story. The woman
had to go to the the psychiatry word and we don't know.
That's as far as as our listener knows what happened. Well,
I hope that she and the baby are okay. Well
(17:53):
on that note, if you have any stories is in
our way? Mom's stuff at how stuff works dot Com
is our email dress, or you can hit us up
on Facebook and like us because we like you, or
you can follow us because we follow um, follow us
on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts, and you can read
our blog during the week It's stuff Mom Never told
(18:14):
You at how Stuff Works dot com. Be sure to
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The house Stuff Works.
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(18:40):
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