Sisterhood and Surveillance
Abstract
The inclusion of women in violent extremist organizations is often misinterpreted as the evidence of unique gender empowerment or ideological transformation. This article examines the institutional role of women in the al-Khansaa Brigade within the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), through a feminist, international relations lens. Drawing on feminist theory of militarized femininity and strategic patriarchy, the article contends that the incorporation of women into ISIS functions not as means to challenge patriarchal authority, but as a mechanism to reinforce it; women were granted limited and largely symbolic authority in roles such as moral policing, propaganda production, and intelligence gathering, thus collectively strengthening ISIS’s internal discipline and operational capacity. By analyzing how gender-segregated institutions expanded the jurisdiction of such extremist governance, this study demonstrates how patriarchal political systems adapt gender roles to sustain hierarchical power. The findings underscore the importance of gender analysis in understanding contemporary extremism, and caution against interpreting the inclusion of women as inherently emancipatory.