Framing the Narrative: Female Fighters, External Audience Attitudes, and Transnational Support for Armed Rebellions

Abstract

Female combatants play a central role in rebel efforts to cultivate and disseminate positive narratives regarding the movement and its political goals. Yet, the effectiveness of such strategies in shaping audience attitudes or generating tangible benefits for the group remains unclear. We propose and test a theory regarding the channels through which female fighters advance rebel goals. We argue that female fighters positively influence audience attitudes toward rebel groups by strengthening observers’ beliefs about their legitimacy and their decision to use armed tactics. We further contend that these effects directly help them secure support from transnational nonstate actors and indirectly promote state support. We assess our arguments by combining a novel survey experiment in two countries with analyses of new cross-national data on female combatants and information about transnational support for rebels. The empirical results support our arguments and demonstrate the impact of gender framing on rebel efforts to secure support.

Exploring the Role of Female Combatants in Non-State Armed Groups: A Case Study of Baloch Liberation Army

“…In the case of females participating as combatants, it legitimizes the group's stance and boosts the group's support. Many perceive that grievances may have provoked the participation of females as combatants as the role of women in armed conflicts is often perceived as victims (Braithwaite & Ruiz, 2018;Loken, 2021;Manekin & Wood, 2020).…”

Female fighters and the fates of rebellions: How mobilizing women influences conflict duration

“…Women in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), for example, acted as “organizational brokers” who brought in new recruits through “quotidian networks,” which enabled the PLO to adapt and persevere following “extreme disruption” (Parkinson, 2013: 424). Similarly, several studies demonstrate that rebel efforts to highlight women’s contributions to the movement can help rebels solicit sympathy and support from domestic as well as international audiences (Loken, 2021; Manekin and Wood, 2020). Although the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) began recruiting female combatants in response to massive losses of male soldiers, the group exaggerated women’s participation as part of a strategy to win support from the local populations (Mudeka, 2014: 89; O’Gorman, 2011).…”

Female rebels and United Nations peacekeeping deployments

“…These are examples of the UN Security Council being swayed by domestic and transnational interest groups publicizing the suffering of women and lobbying the UN for an intervention. Given that female combatants increase the probability that exactly such NGOs pay attention to a conflict and advocate for third-party intervention to it (Manekin and Wood, 2020), this further increases the probability of seeing a UN peacekeeping mission deployed.…”