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

• Date: 01 October 2020
• Published date: 01 October 2020
• Author: Reed M. Wood,Devorah Manekin
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002720912823
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Framing the Narrative:

Female Fighters, External

Audience Attitudes, and

Transnational Support

for Armed Rebellions

Devorah Manekin

1

, and Reed M. Wood

2

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 effec-

tiveness 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 trans-

national 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.

Keywords

civil wars, internal armed conflict, rebellion, gender, propaganda, external support

1

Department of International Relations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

2

Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom

Corresponding Author:

Reed M. Wood, Department of Government, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ,

United Kingdom.

Email: reed.wood@essex.ac.uk

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2020, Vol. 64(9) 1638-1665

ªThe Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0022002720912823

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Women represent a small proportion of armed combatants in contemporary rebel-

lions. Indeed, recent cross-national studies suggest that female combatants are pres-

ent in only about one-third of armed resistance movements (Henshaw 2017; Thomas

and Bond 2015; Wood and Thomas 2017).

1

Nonetheless, gender framing and images

of female combatants are prevalent in rebel propaganda and public outreach efforts.

This appears to be true among rebel groups that recruit large numbers of female

fighters as well those in which women constitute only a small proportion of the

combatants. In El Salvador, for example, the large-scale participation of female

fighters in the Frente Farabundo Mart´ı para la Liberaci´on Nacional (FMLN) were

central to the group’s efforts to cultivate a positive and sympathetic image (Viterna

2014). Similarly, the leadership of Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM) coordinated with

Western journalists to emphasize the contributions of its (comparatively few) female

participants in order to draw attention to its independence struggle against the

Indonesian government (Barter 2014, 70). Numerous other rebel movements with

diverse political goals and ideologies, including anti-colonial rebellions in Southern

Africa, armed separatist movements in the Middle East, and sectarian insurgencies

in Western Europe have likewise incorporated images or narratives of female fight-

ers into their propaganda materials, suggesting that they are aware of their symbolic

power.

In this article, we explore the intentional use of gender frames by rebel groups as

well as the consequences of such efforts. We argue that rebel efforts to emphasize

women’s contribution to the movement assist them in garnering support from trans-

national nonstate actors (TNSAs), such as solidarity networks, nongove rnmental

organizations (NGOs), and activist communities based in foreign states. Securing

support from such groups can generate both direct benefits, such as the provision of

material and economic resources to the group, and indirect benefits, including advo-

cacy and lobbying efforts aimed at shaping the position of governments toward the

conflict. Our argument therefore builds on existing literature that critically analyzes

the symbolic power of gender during wartime (e.g., Bayard de Volo 2001; Viterna

2014) and extends the arguments and findings from the very small number of recent

studies that considers the potential strategic implications of women’s participation in

armed political organizations (e.g., Karim 2019; Wood 2019).

We rely on a diverse set of empirical strateg ies to assess the validity of our

arguments. First, we draw on original survey experiments in the United States and

Indonesia to examine the impact of female combatants on audience attitudes. The

results provide direct evidence that audiences in distinct sociocultural contexts are

more likely to view a group’s goals and their use of violence to attain those goals as

legitimate when they are aware of the presence of female combatants in the group. In

addition, we empirically identify a potential mechanism for this effect: audiences

perceive female fighters as comparatively less motivated by self-interest than their

male counterparts. We then assess the broader implications of these findings for

conflict dynamics. Using a cross-national sample of contemporary armed rebellions,

we analyze the relationship between the presence of female combatants and rebel

Manekin and Wood 1639