Framing Female Militants in Dutch Newspapers

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Framing Female Militants in

Dutch Newspapers

A Comparative Study of the Dutch Women of the Hofstadgroep and the

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria: Masterminds, Obedient Wives, Whores,

Victims of ‘Islamic Lover boys,’ Sisters, or Emancipated?

Katrine A. Zwartjes

S1256718

January 13, 2019

Master thesis: MSc Crisis and Security Management

Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs

Universiteit Leiden

Thesis supervisor: Dr. J. Vüllers

Second reader: Dr. B.W. Schuurman

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Abstract

Militant women have no agency. The media frames militant women based on persisting gender stereotypes. Militant women are either blameless victims with a caring nature, or they are dangerous unstable sexualized masterminds. This thesis tests this assumption on the framing of female militants with discourse analysis. The victim-danger dichotomy is divided into multiple frames and new frames will be introduced. This thesis provides an answer to the research question ‘How have national Dutch newspapers framed Dutch female militants associated with the jihadi groups the Hofstadgroep (HSG) or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)?’ The answer to this question does not entirely correlate with the assumptions.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

The end of the Cold War triggered an academic transition. The focus on inter-state wars turned to intra-state conflict; with an interest in political motivated violence and terrorism (Sylvester & Parashar in Jackson et.al., 2009). The attacks on September 11, 2001 (9/11) in the United States increased the academic and social interest in terrorism exponentially. War, terrorism, and political violence continue to be topical. However, research on women and terrorism remained in a peripheral place in the academic debate. This is can be attributed to most terrorists being men. However, women are taking part in terrorist organizations, and up to thirty percent of international terrorists are women (Nacos, 2005).

Looking at the academic realm, in International Relations research gender is “marginalized and over-determined” (Sylvester & Parashar in Jackson et.al., 2009, p. 179). Consequently, violent women are marginalized research objects and the assumption upholds that women in terrorism are solely “pawns of militarized masculinity or victims of the terror” (Sylvester & Parashar in Jackson et.al., 2009, p. 179). The 9/11 attacks and the following War on Terror reinforced the “gender hierarchy and power in international relations. An old habit of rendering women invisible or backstage recurs” (Sylvester & Parashar in Jackson et.al., 2009, p. 190). Although female terrorists have a marginal place in research, they do not have a marginal place in the media.

Terrorist attacks conducted by female perpetrators receive eight times more media attention than similar attacks conducted by men (Bloom, 2011). Media draw the public’s attention to the phenomenon of female terrorists “as if it is a recent event” and is seen as “exclusive to the 21st

century” (Agara, 2015, p. 116; Sjoberg & Gentry, 2011, p. 58). Dating back to the late 1990s, news media announced that violent women were ‘in fashion’ (Gilbert, 2002, p. 1290). Women taking part in terrorist organization is not a new phenomenon. However, women’s active involvement in terrorist organizations “has grown substantially and become a matter of public attention and record across the globe” (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2011, p. 2). Overall, the media has a keen interest in terrorism. The advertisement slogan ‘sex sells’ seems to be replaced by ‘terrorism sells,’ especially with female terrorists.

Militant women receive attention, but the media portrays these women differently than their male counterpart and often follows gender stereotypes (Brown, 2011). Women are presented as “victims, passive and largely marginal actors in ‘serious’ news stories” (Brown, 2011, p. 707). Women in terrorist organizations have wide-ranging roles. Women in such organizations have been “collaborators, informers, human shields, recruiters, sexual baits (in person or over the Internet), and

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perpetrators of acts of death and destruction” (Sylvester & Parashar in Jackson et.al., 2009, p. 181). Overall, women can be humiliated, fought over, and protected by both states and terrorists; but women also take part in wars and terrorism on their own account or by force.

The framing of female militants by the media is significant. News media are important “builders of realities” and printed media reflects the ‘social mainstream’ (Brown, 2011, p. 708; Mautner in Wodak & Krzyzanowski, 2008). News stories about violence contribute to the construction of gender, including the everyday understanding of the roles and capabilities of women and men (Naylor, 2001). News media help form the societal narrative on how to see female terrorism, and this reflects on the dominant terrorism discourse (Third, 2014). Different newspapers frame women differently as it speaks to a different audience with a distinct discourse.

Newspapers influence the public discourse on female terrorists and terrorism. This influence can spill over into the political debate and social discourse. Misunderstanding or misrepresenting female militants can have repercussions. The threat that these women pose could be under- or overestimated. This can spill over to the public’s fear perception on terrorism and counterterrorism measures could be influenced. It is important to create more understanding of terrorism and gender. The continuous threat from terrorism and the continued fear makes research related to the image framing of female terrorists topical and relevant.

This thesis will contribute to the understanding of the framing of female militants by the media. The topic of my thesis is the image framing of Dutch female jihadi militants by the Dutch newspapers after 9/11. The aim of this thesis is to increase the understanding of the different and plausible changing perception of female terrorists, by the media and therewith society. The Netherlands has an interesting newspaper market, as there are three strands of national newspapers – elite, popular, and Christian.

In addition, the Netherlands is an interesting case to look at because of the militant women. Dutch women have been active in jihadist groups and in large numbers compared to other European countries. Since 9/11 the Netherlands has known tens of women taking part in two jihadist groups, the domestic Hofstadgroep (HSG) and the international Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The women of the Hofstadgroep were a “new breed of holy warriors on the front lines where Islam and the West collide” (Von Knop, 2007, p. 405). In addition, many women from the Netherlands have joined ISIS. Eighteen percent of the European Union foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq were women (Bakker & Leede, 2015). This was higher for women from the Netherlands. Dutch foreign fighters joining ISIS consisted of thirty to forty percent of women (AIVD, 2017; Bakker & Grol, 2017).

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This leads me to my research question: How have national Dutch newspapers framed Dutch female militants associated with the jihadi groups the Hofstadgroep (HSG) or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)?12 The analysis is a comparative case study between the women of the two organizations and the different national newspapers. It is a mainly deductive approach to discourse analysis using various frames – warped/danger, whore, wife, victim, sister, and emancipation. The frames have been deduced from the existing literature on female militants in general and specific HSG and ISIS literature. During the data analysis one inductive frame appeared which could not be ignored, the ‘equal frame.’ The frames will be explained in Chapter 4: Theoretical Framework and Chapter 5: Methodology. The hypotheses are the scientific propositions that help explain certain aspects and will be tested to answer my research questions. The hypotheses are based on the research from Chapter 2: Body of Knowledge, Chapter 3: Dutch Jihadist Terrorism and Chapter 4: Theoretical Framework. The hypotheses are:

• Hypothesis 1: Dutch female militants are framed with little to no agency.

• Hypothesis 2: Dutch female militants are framed based on gender stereotypes; with binary frames of the blameless victims with a caring nature, or the ‘other’ women who are dangerous, unstable, and sexualized.

• Hypothesis 3: Dutch female militants are framed differently when they are described as individuals than in general.

• Hypothesis 4: The framing of Dutch female militants changes with time and location. • Hypothesis 5: Religion is important for the framing.

• Hypothesis 6: Different newspapers frame Dutch female militants differently based on their ideology or type.

This thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter 2: Body of Knowledge conceptualizes key aspects for the research and gives an overview of the academic literature on female militants. Chapter 3: Dutch Jihadist Terrorism introduces the two jihadi groups and their women in order to add on to the general literature with jihadist and group specific information. Chapter 4: Theoretical Framework presents the different newspapers and different deductive frames, which will determine why they differ. Chapter 5: Methodology operationalizes the frames the method of analysis. Chapter 6: Analysis shows the findings from my discourse analysis on the newspaper articles. This thesis will end with the Conclusion.

1_{I keep to using one name for each group in this thesis. The ‘Hofstadgroep’ is the name the Dutch General Intelligence} and Security Service AIVD gave the group. The ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’ is one of the many names of the group, also known as the ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ or ‘Daesh’.

2_{In Chapter 2: Body of Knowledge – Conceptualization, this research question will be conceptualized. In Chapter 3:} Jihadism and the Netherlands, the groups will be explained and examined.

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Chapter 2: Body of Knowledge

This chapter is divided into three main parts. The first is the conceptualization. It is important to conceptualize key concepts of the research - female militant, terrorism, and jihadist terrorism. The second part is the Literature Review with various subsections: the increased in research, societal gender norms on violence, motivations of female militants, media and terrorism, and the framing of female militants. The last part discusses the gaps in the academic debate.

Conceptualization

My research question - How have national Dutch newspapers framed Dutch female militants associated with the jihadi groups the Hofstadgroep or ISIS? – demands the conceptualization of female militants, terrorism, and jihadist terrorism. In judiciary terms, both the HSG and ISIS can be considered terrorist groups. I keep to using the words ‘group’ when referring to these groups, as this is more ambiguous towards the organizational structure than ‘organization’ or ‘network’, unless cited otherwise. However, (terrorist) organization will still be used in general terms. The HSG was deemed a terrorist group by a Dutch court ruling in 2010 and ISIS is on the Dutch list of terrorist organizations (ANP, 2010; Kennisbank Terrorisme).

Female Militant

In my research I refrain to use the term ‘terrorist’ as a direct reference to a person of my research. Instead I follow the example of Beatrice de Graaf (2012), I will use the more objective ‘militant’ to refer to the specific women of my research, unless cited differently. Using ‘terrorist’ can have further judiciary implications, for which the women of my research have never been implicated.Many women – various of whom have been anonymized – have never been trialed or trailed for terrorist activity. Therefore, the women analyzed in my research are considered female militants or ‘militant women,’ and not terrorists. ‘Female militant’ refers to a woman who is active and/or (allegedly) supportive of a terrorist action or organization – referring to non-governmental agents and the acts of political violence. However, ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’ in general terms will still be used. My research does fit the terrorism realm.

Terrorism

Terrorism is a subjective concept. The politicized nature of terrorism makes defining it a struggle for “power and influence,” in part it is about “who labels whom” (Neumann & Smith, 2005, p. 574). Terrorism is, “sometimes deliberately, confused with ‘freedom fighting’ and ‘resistance against

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foreign occupation’” (Schmid, 2013, p. 15). French scholar Didier Bigo concluded that “terrorism does not exist: or more precisely, it is not a useable concept” (Schmid, 2013, p. 15). In the academic field the “[d]efinitional debates are the great Bermuda Triangle of terrorism research” (Jenkins in Bakker, 2015, p. 40). Nevertheless, this thesis relies on terrorism research for the literature review and theoretical framework. Therefore, supplying a definition of terrorism is needed. I will use the often-used definition is that of Alex Schmid:

Terrorism refers on the one hand to a doctrine about the presumed effectiveness of a special form or tactic of fear-generating, coercive political violence and, on the other hand, to a conspiratorial practice of calculated, demonstrative, direct violent action without legal or moral restraints, targeting mainly civilians and noncombatants, performed for its propagandistic and psychological effects on various audiences and conflict parties (Schmid, 2011, p. 86).

There lies an emphasis on the effect a terrorist action has on society at large. Terrorism is “first and foremost discourse,” terrorist attacks need to be reported for it to have happened (Zulaika & Douglass in Altheide, 2006, p. 432). Brian Jenkins summarized this notion accordingly: “terrorists want a lot of people watching not a lot of people dead” (Jenkins in Bakker, 2015, p. 119).

Jihadist Terrorism

Terrorism today is not the same as it was a hundred years ago. Therefore, besides giving a general definition of terrorism I need to include a specific definition of jihadi terrorism, because my thesis specifically deals with jihadi groups. Terrorism has changed, and with it the actions, motivations, and participants. The research by David Rapoport has divided modern terrorism into four waves. Rapoport attached labels to historical trends of types of organizations, based on the guiding ideas and principles of these groups (Rapoport, 2002). My research fits his fourth and final wave: the religiously inspired wave, from 1979 till present. This type of terrorism introduced: religion as the main incentive, killing on indiscriminate basis, and the use of new forms of communication (Weinberg and Eubank, 2011). Other scholars refer to the religious terrorism from the early 1990s as New Terrorism. New terrorism is “more networked, ad hoc, lethal and dangerous than ‘old terrorism’” and conducted by ‘amateurs’ as seen with suicide bombers (Stohl, 2008, p. 12).

Not all religiously inspired terrorist organizations are Muslim, but my research only focuses on jihadist terrorism, also known as (radical) Islamist terrorism, Salafi-jihadism or Mujahideen (meaning engaging in jihad). Seth Jones of RAND Corporation has set up two defining features of a jihadist group: “First, the group emphasizes the importance of returning to a “pure” Islam, that of the

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Salaf, the pious ancestors. Second, the group believes that violent jihad is fard ‘ayn (a personal religious duty)” (Jones, 2014, p. 2). These two aspects are crucial in defining a jihadist organization. Or a simplified definition, jihadists are “modern secular people, with modern political concerns, wearing medieval religious disguise” (Wood, 2015). Nevertheless, jihadism is not monolithic, and jihadist organizations are not static. The HSG and ISIS are very different groups, but both are considered jihadist terrorist groups.

A “salient feature of armed conflict in the Muslim world since 1980 is the involvement of so-called foreign fighters, that is, unpaid combatants with no apparent link to the conflict other than religious affinity with the Muslim side” (Hegghammer, 2010, p. 53). With ISIS, and in the early years of the HSG, was the aim of Dutch jihadist to travel to Muslim countries for the Mujahideen in Syria, Iraq, Chechnya. For Dutch citizens attracked to ISIS this stayed an aim, with the HSG the objectives turned inwards onto the Netherlands. In Chapter 3: Dutch Jihadist Terrorism explores this further.

Terrorism has changed and the role of women in terrorism has changed. Women were late-comers to the jihadi groups in active participation (Weinberg & Eubank, 2011, p. 40). The “surprising dimension of women’s involvement in New Terrorism is that they are now being let in as foot soldiers by cultures that in other respects strictly adhere to defined gender role division and gender segregation” (Laster & Erez, 2015, p. 86). Accordingly, the rise of the female terrorist has become “a signature feature of New Terrorism” (Laster & Erez, 2015, p. 84). The incorporation of female terrorists goes even further, as these groups “have a sophisticated understanding of the instrumental and symbolic effectiveness of gender stereotypes in target societies,” and this understanding is exploited to their advantage (Laster & Erez, 2015, p. 84-85). Terrorism is discourse. Jihadist-terrorist organizations are aware of this, and exploit gender stereotypes to further their position. Gender stereotypes are well embedded into Western society on how we look at terrorism and especially on how we look at female terrorists, as the Literature Review will show.

Literature Review

Research on female militants is peripheral in terrorism research. Research on female militants is both limited and conducted in a wide scope. This broad take has resulted in a “juxtaposition of competing hypotheses, with no comparison across and between findings” (Jacques & Taylor, 2009, p. 500). The incompletion of the academic field has led to the risk of female terrorism research being “bogged down in a conceptual mire” (Jacques & Taylor, 2009, p. 500). Although there is increasingly more research into female terrorists, a “solid theoretical base” is still lacking for further development and refinement (Vogel et.al., 2014, p. 91). The field is broad. Half of the research on female terrorists consists of an “overview of female involvement in specific conflicts, or in terrorism as a whole”

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(Sylvester & Parashar in Jackson et.al., 2009, p. 192). In addition, much of the specific female terrorism research is limited to suicide bombers and Latin American guerilla fighters (Jacques & Taylor, 2009, p. 511). Academic studies fall short in expending on the themes of frequency of women’s engagement in violent politics and fall short on how and why women’s involvement might vary across organizations (Thomas & Bond, 2015). The lack of inquiry troubles the theoretical and practical implications of understanding why women join violent political groups (Thomas & Bond, 2015).

Female terrorism research has many gaps. My thesis hopes exploit some of these, by for example comparing organizations. This literature review will address the research already conducted relevant for my thesis – the increase in research and participation; societal gender norms on violence, motivations of female militants, media and terrorism, and framing of female militants.

Increase in Research

Women have been involved in many political conflicts throughout history, as “the ‘dark figure’ of women’s diverse operational contribution to terrorist activity has always loomed” (Laster & Erez, 2015, p. 84). Nevertheless, it is only recently that they are being analyzed. The wider academic field left research into female terrorists to feminism studies, but feminists have long stayed away from research into female terrorism (Sylvester & Parashar in Jackson et.al., 2009). The increase in terrorism research after 9/11 spread to female terrorism research. Since the mid-/late 2000s, media coverage and scholarly attention increased on female terrorists (Sjoberg, Cooke and Neal in Sjoberg and Gentry, 2011). Between 2002 and 2009 the publications on female terrorists increased by a threefold, compared to the years before (Jacques & Taylor, 2009).

The increase in research can be based on an increase in terrorism studies in general. However, women’s active involvement in terrorist organizations “has grown substantially and become a matter of public attention and record across the globe” (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2011, p. 2). Between 1968 and 2005, women have had an observed direct involvement in more than 10 percent of the overall number of terrorist attacks (Weinberg & Eubank, 2011). In addition, up to thirty percent of international terrorists are women, and women are active in all kinds of different terrorist groups (Nacos, 2005). Overall, women’s participation is increasing (Vogel et.al., 2014).

Societal Gender Norms on Violence

Research into female terrorists has increased. This does not mean that the frame has changed. The societal and academic debate has left the impression that the average terrorist is a male Muslim

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fundamentalist (De Graaf, 2012). When we in the West “think ‘terrorist’ we do not see ‘women’” (Elshtain, 1995, p. 178-179). The attacks of 9/11 and the following War on Terror have reinforced the gender hierarchy relying on the “old habit of rendering women invisible or backstage recurs” or the continued “love to rely upon narratives to describe women’s ‘deviousness’” by academics, bureaucratic policy-makers and the media (Jackson et.al., 2009, p. 190; Gentry, 2012, p. 80). Gender narratives are deeply rooted into society and are visible when researching violence. Gender stereotyped framing is not limited to female militants. Female politicians have been framed according to gender stereotypes, but between the 1980s and 2005 this has weakened somewhat (Nacos, 2006). However, violent female political actors are framed with remaining gender stereotypes (Nacos, 2006). Female violence in society paints a picture for research female terrorists.

In Western society, violence “is implicit in the construction of the male: the chest beating ape evolved into the soldier, the rapist” and on the other hand we "rejoice in the docility of female flesh, its yielding form, its penetrability” (Pearson in Jacoby, 2000, p. 87). This equals violence as only a male physicality. Male violence is the measure and guideline of violence. This goes further, as “our [white and Western] cultural commitment to the nonviolent nature of women” has resulted that past scientific studies of violence have used only male behavior as a determinant (Jacoby, 2000, p. 87-88). The problem with this stereotyping of genders is the lack of considering that aggression is manifested differently in the different genders. Women are understood as Beautiful Souls. The Beautiful Soul is the noncombatant female, “a collective being embodying values and virtues at odds with war’s destructiveness, representing home and hearth and the humble verities of everyday life” (Elshtain, 1995, p. xiii). The roles of women are limited to

frugal, self-sacrificing, and, at times, delicate… In matters of war and peace, the female ‘beautiful soul’ cannot put a stop to suffering, cannot effectively fight the mortal wounding of sons, brothers, fathers. She continues the long tradition of women as weepers, occasions for war, and keepers of the flame of nonwarlike values (Elshtain, 1995, p. 45).

These gender norms are ‘as old as “society itself” with manliness – bravery and self-sacrifice – and womanliness – innocence and fragility (Agara, 2015, p. 117). There are certain role patterns, that help to make sense of society and provide a sense of understanding and security. When these patterns are broken this sense of security is challenged and feelings of incomprehension and fear arise.

Militant women supposedly bring the Western culture into question because of these prevailing norms (Third, 2014). In other words, militant women commit a double crime; the first crime is the use of violence itself, the second crime is that with this violence these women oppose the traditional gender norms and image (MacDonald, 1994). Terrorism is “so unusual and runs so

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contrary to the accepted standards of society, that it seems to suggest psychological anomaly” (Silke, 1998, p. 52). Society ‘needs to’ view violent women either as ‘mad or bad’ and “‘incoherent’ or ‘discontinuous’ beings who fail to conform to the gendered norms of our culture” (Gilbert, 2002, p. 1274). Otherwise, society would need new discourses to understand that both men and women can be violent (Gilbert, 2002). Gilbert presents a binary division of how society views militant women, referring to it as the “pervasive cultural belief in the virgin-whore duality” (Gilbert, 2002, p. 1272):

We have, then, woman as innocent, gentle, caring, nurturing, and incapable of committing violence—the angel, the mother, the virgin, the Madonna, and yet still the ‘other’. We also see woman as evil, sexual, dangerous, the vampire, the black widow, the whore, the vamp, the ‘other’ (Gilbert, 2002, p. 1293).

Women in terrorism are “painted out of the dominant pictures of terrorism or reduced to stereotypical roles (such as victims in need of counterterrorist protection)” (Jackson et.al., 2009, p. 7-8). Violent women are “captured in storeyed fantasies which deny women’s agency and reify gender stereotypes and subordination” (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007, p. 4-5). Gendered stereotypes deny women to act with agency, deny their responsibility for their own actions and their status as terrorist is not acknowledged and political, ideological, or religious motivations are denied (Vogel et.al., 2014). The common trend of this ‘culture of victimhood’ on women is that it reduces “them to something less than themselves” and any ‘agentive role’ is denied, even by scholars (Pearson in Jacoby, 2000, p. 89; Jackson et.al., 2009).

Motivations of Female Militants

Violent women are marginalized research objects and the assumption upholds that women in terrorism are “pawns of militarized masculinity or victims of the terror” (Sylvester & Parashar in Jackson et.al., 2009, p. 179). Women are reduced to non-violent characters who are victims of violence, and not responsible for their own actions. Otherwise, these women break from society and must be ‘mad or bad.’ Militant women’s participation or motivation are not simply taken at face value. In Naylor’s analysis on British print media concluded that “women’s violence was more likely to be reported as irrational or emotional, with real ‘wickedness’ ascribed in a few high-profile cases, whilst men’s violence was more likely to be presented as ‘normal’ and rational” (Naylor, 2001, p.180). The research on why women join terrorist organizations is divided into research looking for the differences between male and female members, and research who refutes these conclusions.

Thomas and Bond (2015) state that participation in (political) violence is often used as a way for individuals to “seek representation or communicate political preferences,” this especially holds

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true for individual – like many women – who, “may feel marginalized, disenfranchised, or otherwise excluded from conventional political life” (Thomas & Bond, 2015, p. 504). The marginalized position would make these women more susceptible to terrorism. The scholars cite “revenge, representation and social role fulfillment” as the three main benefits women seek when they join a violent political organization (Thomas & Bond, 2015, p. 489).

Bloom (2011) puts forward a similar argument. Women who take part in terrorist groups are motivated by five aspects: revenge, redemption, relationship, respect, and rape (2011). However, even Bloom fails in presenting a specific female motivation – as all these motivations can apply to men too. In addition, several policy and academic papers have drawn a similar conclusion: “women engage in terrorism largely for personal reasons” (Sjoberg, Cooke & Neal in Sjoberg & Gentry, 2011, p. 1-2). Simultaneously, academics have questioned this conclusion (Sjoberg, Cooke & Neal in Sjoberg & Gentry, 2011).

Many attempts to explain women’s involvement in terrorism center on “defining a vulnerable demographic” (Jacques & Taylor, 2013, p. 36). Jacques and Taylor have argued that female terrorists vary in their sociodemographic characteristics, “and that those characteristics do not always fit the media stereotypes of female-perpetrated terrorism [isolated, uneducated, and unemployed individuals] or the expectations set out by studies of male terrorism and studies of other crime types” (Jacques & Taylor, 2013, p. 42). The conclusions drawn from why women have participated in violent political organizations “mirror almost directly conclusions from gender-neutral research into why individuals join insurgencies” (Thomas & Bond, 2015, p. 490). Women join terrorist groups for the same reasons as men.

Many female terrorists “do not perceive their involvement as passive; they regard themselves as empowered political actors, not as auxiliaries to their more self-aware male counterparts” (Toles Patkin, 2004, p. 82). As a collective, women are not more lethal than they men, but they can be individually (De Graaf, 2012). Individual female militants are deadlier and more dangerous than men are. This is not because they are mad, but because they are more committed to the case (MacDonald, 1994). Overall, women who join a terrorist organization tend to be “older and better educated” than their male counterpart, and therefore less likely to be ‘naïve schoolgirls’ (Toles Patkin, 2004, p. 82). There is a sense of liberation and emancipation with their commitment to the cause. Female militants are “likened to a lioness protecting her cubs; it is said that the woman views her cause as a surrogate child” (Toles Patkin, 2004, p. 82). This idea links to MacDonald’s book title of Shoot the Women First (1994). MacDonald referred to West German counterterrorist operations, who commanded to

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shoot the women first as they were more ruthless, committed, and aggressive than male members of terrorist organizations when they feel the cause is threatened (MacDonald, 1994).

Media and Terrorism

On November 9, 2005, Europe got a ‘wake-up call’ from the idea of nonviolent Western women (Jacques & Taylor, 2013). The Belgium Muriel Degauque was the first European suicide bomber, she was the only casualty, but the shock also came from Degauque not fitting violent female stereotypes - she was educated, well-mannered and came from a supportive family and community (Jacques & Taylor, 2013). The shock Degauque generated is an example of the societal shock female militants generate. According to Elshtain, when “a woman gets accused of an unusually dirty deed, we are shocked” (Elshtain, 1995, p. 179). Women participation in political violence are generally treated “with fascination and as abnormalities” (Vogel et.al., 2014, p. 91).

The media plays a large part in how society looks at female terrorists. Terrorist organizations and terrorist attacks are internationally newsworthy; the “events are unexpected, negative, and […] because they are dramatic and often result in casualties” (Yarchi et.al., 2015, p. 1010). Accordingly, terrorism receives extensive coverage in both the local and global media (Yarchi et.al., 2010). However, research into news and terrorism often merely considers the effect of the news coverage, rather than the context of the coverage (see Third, 2014; Schmid & Paletz, 1999). These scholars look at the relation between media and terrorists, where the focus lies on how media facilitates the terrorist message and its discourse. This is research looking at the idea that ‘terrorism is discourse.’ However, how media portrays terrorism and frames militants is not addressed.

Researching the framing of female terrorists by newspapers is not without cause. Terrorist attacks conducted by female perpetrators receive eight times more media attention than similar attacks conducted by men (Bloom, 2011). Media have drawn the public’s attention to the phenomenon of female terrorists “as if it is a recent event” and is seen as “exclusive to the 21st century” (Agara, 2015, p. 116; Sjoberg & Gentry, 2011, p. 58). Dating back to the late 1990s, news media announced that violent women were ‘in fashion’ (Gilbert, 2002, p. 1290). Overall, the media has a keen interest in terrorism. The advertisement slogan ‘sex sells’ seems to be replaced by ‘terrorism sells,’ especially with female terrorists.

Media helps form the discourse in which female terrorism is viewed, it is crucial for the reproduction of the dominant terrorism discourse (Third, 2014). The press continues to present female terrorists as a curiosity. Most news coverage on female terrorists “share the dual move of denying women’s agency in their violence and condemning women’s femininity” (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007,

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p. 30). The attention female terrorists receive is in relation and in terms of her gender, in which the “salience of the women’s identity as women is rising” (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007, p. 2). Societies gender stereotypes on people engaging in (political) violence are reflected in the media.

Few scholars have considered the press’ ‘idolization’ of female terrorists. Overall, the press ignores the potential political motivations of female terrorists (MacDonald, 1994). Female terrorists are either under- or overestimated by the media, based on the stereotypes of victims and mad women. De Graaf (2012) has conducted research on the under- and overestimation of the agency and danger of female militants. This supported the cliché image of women as victim of male oppression or as being of unsound mind after they would leave mother- and/or wifehood behind (De Graaf, 2012). The coverage on female militants presents ‘psychologizing, emotional-rational stereotypes of female terrorists’ and is not a realistic representation (De Graaf, 2012, p. 15). The image framing presents female militants as more dangerous, even though women rarely reach a leadership position in an organization (De Graaf, 2012).

De Graaf’s research reflects on the dichotomized portray of women in terrorism: the blameless victims with a caring nature, or the ‘other’ women who are dangerous, unstable, sexualized. The research on violent women presents the same dichotomy. The media portrays women in such a way that their role in terrorist organizations are either overestimated or underestimated, “stereotypes simplify complex motivations and either overvalue or undervalue women’s agency” (Mehra, 2016; Laster & Erez, 2015, p. 83). However, ‘this binary way’ rarely realistically reflects female terrorists (Marway, 2011). The media idolizes female militants, but does not seem to understand them, as women’s role or danger in a terrorist group is either over- or underestimated.

Framing of Female Militants

Female terrorists are framed in a dichotomized way. However, Sjoberg and Gentry (2007) look further than this and they created concrete frames on how militant women are framed in society, politics, media etc. The aim of their book Mothers, Monsters, Whores is to argue that “the treatment of women’s violence in global politics demonstrates that traditional gender norms remain intact and thriving” (Sjoberg and Gentry, 2007, p. 7). Sjoberg and Gentry present three common gender narratives: mother, monster, and whore. The blameless victims with a caring nature is reflected in the “‘mothers’, women who are fulfilling their biological destinies” and the ‘other’ women who are dangerous, unstable, sexualized are represented by the “‘monsters’, women who are pathologically damaged and are therefore drawn to violence; or as ‘whores’, women whose violence is inspired by sexual dependence and depravity” (Sjoberg and Gentry, 2007, p. 12).

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Conclusion

The three frames of Sjoberg and Gentry will be further examined in Chapter 4: Theoretical Framework, as they form the basis of the frames tested in this thesis. However, the frames are incomplete. For my research I have extended these frames to include a more specific innocent, docile victim frame, and a religious frame that is more specific to the women taking part in jihadist terrorism reflecting Chapter 3: Dutch Jihadist Terrorism.

The research on female militants is not exhausted, especially in regard to media and image framing. My research will focus on how female militants have been portrayed by the media, testing the frames that came from the literature. It is possible to find the same gender stereotyped trends in my analysis on female militants. However, my angle of research is different. There is no research on framing only Dutch female militants. In addition, the literature does not present a possibility for a change in image framing. With the stereotyping comes the warning not to over- or underestimate female militants, my research will also take this continuously mentioned element into consideration when looking at newspaper articles. I hope to be able to challenge the stereotyping by the media and see a change in discourse. My thesis will exploit these gaps in research on female militants.

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Chapter 3: Dutch Jihadist Terrorism

My research involves women of the Hofstadgroep and women of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Chapter 2: Body of Knowledge introduced the concepts of female militants, terrorism, and jihadist terrorism, and focused on the academic debate on women in terrorism. This chapter looks at Dutch jihadist terrorism in the Netherlands and related to Dutch citizens. Hofstadgroep and ISIS are introduced. This chapter is divided into three main parts: terrorism before the Hofstadgroep, Hofstadgroep and ISIS are introduced. The parts on the Hofstadgroep and ISIS are divided into three parts: the emergence of the group, the organization, and the women of the group. This chapter finishes with the framing of Dutch jihadist women.

Before the Hofstadgroep

The Netherlands has a history of radical movements after the Second World War, some schooled under terrorism. For example, the Rote Armee Fraktion affiliated Rode Jeugd and the Moluccan youngsters in the 1960s and 1970s; the anti-militarist ‘The Movement’ in the 1980s; and the RaRa (Revolutionary Anti-Racist Action) during the 1980s and 1990s. Compared to other European countries, the Netherlands has dealt with little bloodshed. During the 1990s the Netherlands had a peaceful political climate. With the start of the new millennium, the Dutch authorities saw a revival of autonomous actions against racist and fascist organizations and asylum policies and actions in favor of environmental protection and animal rights (Van Buuren & De Graaf, 2014). But all remained quiet.

On May 6, 2002, the Netherlands had a wake-up call with the murder of politician Pim Fortuyn by Volkert van der Graaf. Fortuyn’s murder was “the first political murder seemingly since time immemorial” (Van Buuren & De Graaf, 2014, p. 163). Pim Fortuyn and his populist political party LPF (List Pim Fortuyn) – with an anti-Islam and anti-establishment orientation - were expected to achieve an electoral victory in the national elections nine days later (Van Buuren & De Graaf, 2014). Political violence was alive again in the Netherlands.

The Hofstadgroep (active 2002-2005)

The emergence of the Hofstadgroep

The 1990s were peaceful in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, it was also the time that jihad extremism took root in the Netherlands. In the early 1990s, various jihadist terrorist organizations set up in the Netherlands to recruit for the foreign mother group (Vidino, 2007). From the late 1990s, the Dutch

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secret service AIVD found an emerging threat from jihadist ‘transnational networks’, ‘international-orientated local networks’ and ‘local-autonomous networks’ in the Netherlands (Van Buuren & De Graaf, 2014). In early 2002, the AIVD started watching a group of home-grown jihadist radicals3, the services would later call the ‘Hofstadgroep’ (Van Buuren & De Graaf, 2014). In 2002 and early 2003, core members of the Hofstadgroep were “would-be foreign fighters, but not yet would-be terrorists” (Schuurman et.al., 2015, p. 913). They wanted to travel to Islamist insurgents and fight with them, rather than return to their country of origin after their training. In January 2003, two teenagers tried unsuccessfully to travel to Chechnya to join the mujahideen. One of these teenagers was Samir A., who became a spin in the HSG network.

In late 2003, the focus of the HSG turned towards the Dutch government and its people, with an increased importance on religious justifications for violence against apostates and blasphemers (Schuurman et.al., 2015). From 2004 onwards, members of the HSG began to conspire against Dutch targets (Van Buuren & De Graaf, 2014). The HSG was composed of individuals raised in the Netherlands and were immersed in Dutch society; and their fight included local targets, rather than joining the fight in the Middle East or Chechnya. The AIVD called this new phenomenon ‘European jihad’ – “extremist European Muslims who are prepared to commit attacks in their own country” (AIVD, 2006, p. 7).

On November 2, 2004, the inwards orientation became clear. Mohammed B. killed filmmaker Theo van Gogh in broad daylight in Amsterdam, driven by religious justification (Schuurman et.al., 2015, p.914). Mohammed B. was not on a list of 150 jihadist radicals the AIVD had identified as possible risks to security (Van Buuren & De Graaf, 2014). Nevertheless, the murder was a “one-man mission” (Van Buuren & De Graaf, 2014, p. 166). The extremist ideology and the gruesome nature of the murder of Van Gogh have left the events of November 2, 2004 to have a continuous impact on Dutch society and politics that continues until today (Schuurman, 2018).

Van Gogh was the only casualty of the HSG. However, other Islam-critical political figures were threatened, including members of parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders. Van Gogh was a direct victim, specifically targeted for his stance on Islam, but the indirect effect was far greater. After the attack on Van Gogh, the levels of public fear increased. According to the Eurobarometer poll, in the following months terrorism was considered as one of the two main security issues (Bakker, 2015). Just before the attack 12 percent of the population considered terrorism as one of the two key issues facing the country, a year later this was 40 percent (Bakker, 2015). However, the effect of

3_{Home-grown terrorism is terrorism in the ‘home’ country, but inspired by foreign and transnational developments, and} therefore different from pure domestic terrorism (De Graaff et.al., 2009, p.332).

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attack on Van Gogh – where one person was killed in broad daylight and the perpetrator left a threatening note on the body – proves that just killing one person can have a much wider effect and changed Dutch society and that terrorism is discourse.

After Mohammed B.’s arrest, twelve HSG suspects of membership of a terrorist organization were arrested. B. was convicted for ‘murder with a terrorist intent.’ This ended the first wave of the HSG. The groups resurgence in 2005 (Piranha case) “reverted to predominantly geopolitical motives as justification for a terrorist attack in the Netherlands” (Schuurman et.al., 2015, p. 914). In October 2005, a second wave of arrest was made, which brought the group to its end (Schuurman & Taylor, 2018). The threat of jihadist terrorism diminished with it (Van Buuren & De Graaf, 2014).

The Organization

The HSG consisted out of approximately 38 participants. Most of these individuals were born and raised in the Netherlands or held a double passport, but eight were foreigners, of which two were highly important for the group (Schuurman et.al., 2015, p. 910). This number is based on those who were arrested as suspected participants during police investigations, witnesses who at least once participated in a group meeting, and people who were in statements of these suspects and witnesses (Schuurman, 2018). It is difficult to determine how many people participated on the peripheral in the HSG, “[d]ue to its ambiguous organizational structure and lack of anything resembling a formal list of ‘members’” (Schuurman, 2018, p.77).

The Hofstadgroep was a group or circle of acquaintances (Schuurman, 2018; Groen & Kranenberg, 2006). “[T]he Hofstadgroup resembled an amorphous community of like-minded individuals spread over several nearby cities. It was not truly one group but a collection of smaller subgroups, revolving around a nucleus in The Hague and Amsterdam” (Schuurman, 2018, p. 88). The HSG is called a ‘group’ referring to several people put together, not implying certain organizational structures. Hofstadgroep set itself apart from other jihadist groups with a lack of structure and lack of recruitment (Vidino, 2007). In addition, it is unclear what “the group hoped to achieve, no clear ideological foundation that could form the basis for communal efforts,” this contributed to the ambiguous organizational aspect of the group, as it attracted anyone subscribed to basic Salafist principles and was never exclusively supportive of the use of terrorist violence (Schuurman, 2018, p. 87).

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Women of the Hofstadgroep

Until February 5, 2005, the focus was on the male participants of the HSG. Janny Groen and Annieke Kranenberg introduced the Netherlands to the ‘radical Muslimas’ of the HSG in an article in de Volkskrant – the women were not seduced or brainwashed, but well aware and active participants (De Graaf, 2012). How many women were connected to the HSG and in what capacity is unclear. However, over a period of almost two years Groen and Kranenberg got to know around ten sisters from the HSG circles, all between 18 and 25 years old. They were in contact with ten women and at least ten other women related to the Hofstadgroep were mentioned throughout the book they wrote about the women of the HSG (Groen & Kranenberg, 2006). This insinuates that there are more peripheral people related to the group than official numbers seem to indicate.

The HSG revealed the increased aggressiveness and prominence of female extremists in Europe (Von Knop, 2007). The women of the HSG were a “new breed of holy warriors on the front lines where Islam and the West collide. In the male-dominated world of Islamic extremism, they saw themselves as full-fledged partners in jihad” (Von Knop, 2007, p. 405). The women were a combination of Dutch directness and orthodox fundamental Islam, believing in equal footing with the brother after being born and raised in the Netherlands (Groen & Kranenberg, 2006). These women emphasized their religious commitment and the importance of taking care of their ‘brothers and sisters’ (Groen & Kranenberg, 2006). Women did most of the translations from Arabic for the group and translators held a pristine and respected position (Groen & Kranenberg, 2006). Nevertheless, as collective the women of the Hofstadgroep could be considered dangerous (De Graaf, 2012).

Between 2002–2010, 255 suspects were arrested on terrorist related charges; most suspects were immediately released, never convicted or expelled; but seven suspects were convicted on terrorist charges, and 14 suspects were convicted on other charges (Van Buuren and De Graaf, 2014, p.167). One of these 14 suspects was Soumaya S. She was the first Dutch female terrorist suspect. Soumaya S., together with her husband and Martine van der O., were arrested in Amsterdam on suspicion of prohibited possession of weapons and suspicion of terrorist activities. The team leader of the National Criminal Investigation admitted that the police did not realize the threat of radical Muslimas until 2005, the arrest of Soumaya S. changed their view:

Soumaya was small and slender […]. But she was not scared of us. We handcuffed her and asked if she had any weapons. She answered: ‘Yes, in my backpack, the Koran.’ She was that fanatic. This, we rarely see with criminals whom we arrest, they do not have such a big mouth (translated from De Graaf, 2012, p. 265).

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Soumaya S. was never charged. On 15 March 2011, after various trials, the Dutch Attorney-General submitted to the Supreme Court to annul Soumaya S.’s verdict. This erased the first convicted female terrorist from Dutch history (De Graaf, 2010). However, there was almost no attention paid to this, and the trial ended in a sizzle (De Graaf, 2010).

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (active 1999/2012-2017)

The Emergence of the ISIS

In December 2010, a Tunisian street vender committed suicide and sparked the Arab Spring. Instead, of more freedom and democracy in Syria it started a complex and bloody civil war. In March 2011, people started to protest the al-Assad regime. When the protests continued the Syrian regime intervened. In the fall of 2011, Syrian military deserters, the Muslim brotherhood, and Salafist united in an armed front against al-Assad. Some of the Syrian military deserters created the Free Syrian Army, supported by many Western countries. In January 2012, the al-Qaeda in Iraq - dating back to 1999, later known as Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) – expanded to Syria and created Jabhat al-Nusra, wanting a utopian Caliphate with the sharia. The Syrian and Iraqi parts of ISI split off from each other into the al-Qaeda supported Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). On 29 June 2014, ISIS’s leader al-Baghdadi declared the Caliphate having control over large areas of Syria and Iraq.

After the ‘fall’ of the Hofstadgroep, Dutch jihadism seemed to have disappeared and the Muslim community seemed to have built up a high resistance against jihadism (Bakker & Grol, 2017). Until 2011, the movement ‘Shariah4Holland’ was created, inspired by the Sharia4Belgium4_{. The}

Shariah4Holland was never as big as the Belgium version. However, they were successful in generating new jihadists and unite national jihadi groups. There were no attempts for violence or foreign fighting and the group consisted out of less than a hundred people (Bakker & Grol, 2017).

The Organization

In late 2012, the AIVD and the police noticed an increase in the number of Dutch citizens travelling to Syria to take part in the civil war. People who wanted to help the Syrian population in their fight against the Bashar al-Assad regime. However, some wanted to reshape Syria into an Islamic state. Since June 2017, there are no new successful travelers to Syria/Iraq (NCTV, 2018). In total 310

4_{In February 2015, the Court of Antwerp ruled that Sharia4Belgium could be seen as a terrorist organization, of which} 10 percent of the Belgium foreign fighters had ties to (Van San, 2018, p. 44, 43).

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people left the Netherlands to fight in Syria and Iraq, three-quarters of whom joined the ISIS (AIVD, 2018). As of November 2018, 55 people returned and 80 have died (AIVD, 2018).

ISIS is a “hermit kingdom; few have gone there and returned” (Wood, 2015). ISIS is not a ‘typical’ terrorist organization, Tziarras argues that ISIS is a “fusion of a state, an insurgency, and a terrorist organization; a violent nonstate actor that could be best described as a ‘quasi-state’” (Tziarras, 2017, p. 96). The structure and hierarchy of the HSG was vague and ambiguous, but the structure and hierarchy of ISIS were organized. In addition, the aim and orientation are outward; and where the HSG lacked recruitment, ISIS exceled in recruitment of foreign fighters and in mobilization.

The online voices have been essential to spreading propaganda and ensuring that newcomers know what to believe. Online recruitment has also widened the demographics of the jihadist community, by allowing conservative Muslim women—physically isolated in their homes— to reach out to recruiters, radicalize, and arrange passage to Syria. Through its appeals to both genders, the Islamic State hopes to build a complete society (Neumann in Wood, 2015).

Women of the ISIS

The roles and positions of Dutch women with ISIS are well documented, better than with the HSG. The geographical relocation indicates ISIS-participation. In addition, more research has been conducted on Western foreign fighters. Eighteen percent of the European Union foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq were women (Bakker & Leede, 2015). This number was higher for women from the Netherlands. Dutch foreign fighters joining ISIS consisted of thirty to forty percent of women (AIVD, 2017; Bakker & Grol, 2017).

When the situation in Mosul became increasingly desperate in 2017, ISIS launched a “wave of female suicide bombers against the Iraqi army” and promoted a more active role for women in the combat zones (Maher, 2017, p. 19). There are no indications that Dutch women were involved in physical violence, but the women in Syria/Iraq are not without danger. In the West itself women have been involved in several foiled plots, e.g. in September 2016, a group of French women tried to carry out a car bomb attack stimulated by ISIS (AIVD, 2018). There is an unknown number of ISIS supporting women from the Netherlands.

Most Dutch foreign fighter women, like local women, are responsible for the household, raising new ISIS-fighters or ‘cooking for the brothers’ (Bakker & Grol, 2017). In addition, women are used as propaganda material to get men to join ISIS with the promise of a wife (Bakker & Grol,

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2017). Women can propagate this themselves and have a recruiting role for new wives for fighters. The “Western narrative of the oppressed Muslim woman may be misguided, but […], ‘jihadi girl power’ often comes at other women's expense” (Gilsinan, 2014). For example, some Western women are part of the religious enforcement unite al-Khansaa-brigade, punishing and arresting other women who are not following the rules (Bakker & Grol, 2017).

However, research suggests that there is not one profile of the women who travel to Syria (Bakker & Leede, 2015). Most Western women with ISIS have “demonstrated a zealous commitment to the ideology of the terror group,” and are the “so-called caliphate’s truest believers” (Maher, 2017, p. 19). The “predominant stereotype of a woman travelling to Syria is often that of either a naïve and docile victim, or a fanatic and dominant agitator” (Bakker & Leede, 2015, p. 4). The AIVD has warned that not all women are naïve and docile victims, many women want to fight with IS, but do not get permission for this, including suicide attacks (AIVD, 2017).

The motivation for these girls and women various per person, and so far, these motivations do not necessarily differ from those of the boys and men who joined ISIS (Bakker & Leede, 2015). However, many researchers believe it is the “hope of finding love or romance that brings many young women to Syria” (Schröter, 2015). However, they are not only hopeless romantics or the so-called “jihadi bride’ or “bedroom radicals”: the “women of IS may have partly been attracted by romantic ideas of finding a soul mate. But like the male jihadists, they also see themselves as part of a grand movement that will completely change the world” (Ingram, 2017, p. 3; Schröter, 2015). Another motivation to travel to Syria is the idea of ‘sisterhood.’ The women and girls travelled to Syria “post that giving up their family and friends is hard, but that the friendship they get in return makes every other friendship fade. Research points to the idea that for women seeking some form of sanctity or acceptance” (Bakker & Leede, 2015, p. 7).

Framing of Dutch Jihadi Terrorism

This overview of the HSG and ISIS and their participants paints a picture of a wide variety of characters. Nevertheless, the news framing of the female participants is comparable with the framing scholars in the Literature Review presented: a dichotomy between the blameless victims with a caring nature, or the ‘other’ women who are dangerous, unstable, sexualized. The framing of the women of the Hofstadgroep by media and politics exemplified the constant tension between ‘victim of’ and ‘dangerous woman’ (De Graaf, 2012). The tabloid press “brandished the converted jihadist women as seduced, brainwashed, and repressed by the male terrorist suspects in supporting their radical activities” (De Goede & De Graaf, 2013, p. 323). This idea was operationalized in the case of Soumaya S., the only female defendant, whose case was acquitted (De Goede & De Graaf, 2013).

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Dutch foreign fighters who went to join ISIS also deal with a dichotomized stereotype. Bakker and Grol noticed that also male foreign fighters were framed in this manner. Stereotypes on Dutch jihadists vary from ‘they are the product of the intolerant Islam and extremely dangerous and murderous idealists,’ until ‘they are discriminated, changeless, sad figures, who are brainwashed by smart recruiters’ (Bakker & Grol, 2017, p. 240). For women there are even more black and white images. They are framed as slavish, naive women, and victims of lover boy-like practices or as fanatic ‘hate witches’ who ‘spread the poison in the heads of our children’ (Bakker and Grol, 2017, p. 240).

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Chapter 4: Theoretical Framework

For this thesis, I am interested to understand how and why newspapers have framed female militants a certain way. In this theoretical framework I will explain the causal mechanisms for my analysis. In my analysis I will be testing various frames. This theoretical framework will introduce and conceptualize these frames, which have been created based on the literature on framing of female terrorists and on the information about the women of the groups from Chapter 3: Dutch Jihadist Terrorism. In Chapter 5: Methodology I will further operationalize these frames. Before introducing the frames, this theoretical framework will look at the Dutch national newspapers. Newspapers have a different ideology and a different audience, and therefore a different discourse on female militants.

Newspapers

Different Types of Newspapers

There is little empirical research on the differences between various Dutch newspapers (Boukes & Vliegenthart, 2017). However, researchers have looked at the general distinction between the elite and popular newspapers. Lehman-Wilzig and Seletzky (2012) are such researchers and they found various traditional distinguishing elements, with some adds on of Dutch newspaper specific research of Boukes and Vliegenthart (2017).

1. Content: elite newspapers focus on ‘hard news’ with background information and act as the watchdogs of democracy. Popular newspapers “tend not to consider social responsibility” and focus more on ‘soft’ news that is “more colorfully people-oriented: crime, sports, sex and gossip along with a modicum of hard news” (Lehman-Wilzig & Seletzky, 2012, p. 2). In addition, tabloids focused more on negativity and on news with a geographical proximity (Boukes & Vliegenthart, 2017).

2. Target audience: elite newspapers are serious and rational, focusing on the educated and upper-middle class, rather than the emotional target of popular newspapers, which focus on less educated and lower-class audiences (Lehman-Wilzig & Seletzky, 2012). Popular newspapers will use more personification, with examples of the average Joe (Boukes & Vliegenthart, 2017).

3. Design: elite newspapers have more text and longer articles; popular newspapers focus more on graphics: photos and large-sized headliners.

4. Journalistic ethics: “there is a general assumption (obviously, measuring this aspect is very difficult) that quality papers adhere to a higher level of ethical practice than the popular press” (Lehman-Wilzig & Seletzky, 2012, p. 2).

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Aside from popular and elite newspapers there is a third category of newspapers in the Netherlands, the orthodox-protestant newspapers. Literature on the differences in Dutch newspapers do not include religious newspapers. I want to include them in my analysis because of the specific religious orientation and their national accessibility. The orthodox-protestant newspapers are the last relics of the Dutch pillarization (verzuiling) of the Dutch newspapers (Van de Plasse, 2005). Pillarization is the division of a society into groups on a religious and socio-economic basis, in which groups are separated and shielded from each other. This means that these religious newspapers are based on the (traditional gender) norms and values of the Christian-protestant faith. In addition, these newspapers will speak to a distinct religious audience, as elite and popular newspapers do.

Dutch National Newspapers

For this analysis I looked at seven different national newspapers. The NRC Handelsblad and nrc.next are combined and the economy and business oriented Het Financieele Dagblad is not included due to its relevance. There are three elite newspapers, two popular newspapers, and two Christian newspapers. This thesis uses the newspaper profiles of Takens et.al. and the Mediamonitor’s data on the daily, national printed newspapers market shares of 2017 (Takens et.al., 2010; Mediamonitor, 2018).

• NRC Handelsblad (NRC) (1970, as a merger) and its younger sister nrc.next (2006) are elite newspapers with a liberal (right) orientation. Market share of 5.2 and 1.2 percent.

• Trouw (1943) is an elite newspaper with its roots in the protestant underground. Now, it has a left orientation. Market share of 3.8 percent. Provider in 2017 De Persgroep.

• De Volkskrant (VK) (1919), this elite newspaper started as a catholic newspaper. Now, it is a progressive leftish newspaper. Market share of 9.1 percent.

• Algemeen Dagblad (AD) (1946) is a popular newspaper. It has no political or religious orientation but has regional news add-ons. Market share of 12.9 percent.

• De Telegraaf (1893) is the most widely read newspaper in the Netherlands. It is a popular newspaper, standing for the populist wing of liberal conservatives. Market share of 14.6 percent.

• Nederlands Dagblad (ND) (1967) is an orthodox-protestant newspaper. Market share of 0.7 percent.

• Reformatorisch Dagblad (RD) (1971) is a more conservative orthodox-protestant newspaper. Market share of 1.6 percent.

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The Frames

I have opted for a mainly deductive approach to discourse analysis as the research method for my analysis. This means that the frames are set before the analysis started. In this section I will introduce the five deductive frames. Four frames have derived from the general literature. The notion of the ‘blameless victims with a caring nature’ produced the blameless ‘victim frame’ and caring/ nurturing ‘wife frame.’ And the notion of the ‘other women’ produced the dangerous, unstable ‘warped frame’ and the sexualized ‘whore frame’. The literature on the women of the HSG and ISIS produced the ‘religious frame.’ The frames are introduced in the following order: warped/danger, whore, wife, victim, and religion.

Frame 1: Warped/ Danger

The ‘warped frame’ is a frame derived from Sjoberg & Gentry’s monster frame and the ‘mad or bad’ and ‘unsound mind’ notions (Gilbert, 2002; De Graaf, 2012). This frame is not exclusive to female terrorists. Being psychologically broken has been linked to terrorism in general (Silke, 1998; Laqueur in Egerton, 2011). However, female militants are even madder. This warped woman is often an older ugly mastermind behind whatever the other ‘innocent and helpless’ women did (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007). Warped means that something is not right with these women. These women are the “evil incarnate with an insane mission borne of anger,” they are not sane and psychologically broken (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007, p. 40). Because the women are pathological it is neither the person nor their gender as responsible for the violence. This frame presents women as unstable and a danger to other women. Their danger does not lie in violence, but in their ability to be a mastermind behind recruiting or mobilizing other women.

Frame 2: Whore

The ‘whore frame’ derives from Sjoberg and Gentry’s whore frame, and the sexualized notion of ‘bad woman’. Violent women are a threat to the Western patriarchy; this threat ends when those women are “dehumanized through sexualization” and women’s violence is “highlighted, exploited and fetishized” (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007, p. 45,46). These women are characterized “by their capacity (or lack thereof) to have sex with men” (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007, p. 46). Women’s violence and sexuality are linked, causing women to be labeled as either ‘slut’ or ‘lesbian.’ Women can be whores in the literal sense, sold for sex to men as pawns in political violence, or willing sex objects, but also there is the “shadow of the lesbian is laminated to the representation of women’s violence” (Hart, 1994, p. vii). Women are sexualized in this frame, at times by their roles in the organization, but more often by the Western discourse.

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Frame 3: Wife

The ‘wife frame’ derives from Sjoberg and Gentry’s mother frame and the recurrent nurturing nature of women. This frame explains women’s violence via the gender characteristics. The nurturing mother/wife has a supportive role as housewife and child raiser, women are ‘domesticated’ terrorists (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007). This frame reflects the Western idea of the psychological compulsion of women “to assist and support others (specifically their men) extends to assisting and supporting, even mothering, terrorists” (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007, p. 34). Another aspect to this frame is that women are motivated to participate by “vengeance driven by maternal and domestic disappointments” (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007, p. 31-32). The women are motivated by taking take care of their husbands and family and are confined to supportive domesticated tasks.

Frame 4: Victim

This frame is based on the notion of the innocent virgin and blameless victim. It does not derive from Sjoberg and Gentry. This frame focuses on the innocent, virgin, docile like schoolgirls who are only victims of circumstances when they participate in a terrorist group. Women in conflict are ‘disproportionately presented’ as victims - raped, widowed, and internally displaced (Vogel et.al., 2014, p. 92). A woman “is expected to be against war and violence, but to cooperate with wars fought to protect her innocence and virginity” (Gentry & Sjoberg, 2015, p. 2-3). Participation in a terrorist group is out of a form of victim’s self-defense. The discourse is that these women need our protection and be defended, as ‘it’ was not their fault.

Frame 5: Religion

This frame is derived from jihadist specific literature and from literature focusing on the devotion of female militants to the cause. The basis of this frame lies in the religious commitment women make when they are part of a jihadist group. Therefore, this is a relative agentive frame. This frame can be divided into two subframes: the religious ‘sister,’ and the committed ‘emancipation.’ Until the 2000s one of the defining qualities of jihadi terrorism “were its lack of female participation and the specific ideology that deterred it” (Ness, 2005, p. 359). This changed. Religion is the basis of these women’s lives, this gives the women a sense of belonging and the purpose to help members of the group. The women presented themselves as a devoted, studious Muslim sisterhood that is a ‘warm welcome’ for other Muslim women (Abels & Butijn, 2004b). The strong bond with the other ‘sisters’ is a reason some women travel to Syria (Bakker & De Leede, 2015). The religious commitment can go further into a form of emancipation and liberation, in which the women can be even more committed to the case than the men (MacDonald, 1994).

Framing Female Militants in Dutch Newspapers