Radicalizing Her: Why Women Choose Violence

Gowrinathan, a journalist and director of the Politics of Sexual Violence Initiative at the City College of New York, debuts with a nuanced and deeply reported look at female guerilla fighters and what motivates them to take up arms. Though often portrayed as an “anomaly,” female fighters “make up nearly 30 percent of militant movements worldwide,” Gowrinathan writes. Raw, in-depth interviews with members of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, FARC in Colombia, and other resistance movements reveal that violence is both a “political reality” and “the only option to access power” for Gowrinathan’s subjects, who have legitimate rage against their oppressors and are passionately committed to saving their communities. Gowrinathan also critiques Western progressives who expect victimized women to “wear [their] trauma as an identity card” in order to incite public outrage, and finds fault with NGO programs that attempt to rehabilitate ex-fighters by teaching them traditionally feminine skills, such as embroidery, rather than providing the legal help they need. Blending academic research, reflections on her own family’s connection to the Tamil separatist movement, and the harrowing yet often empowering stories of women who choose to fight, Gowrinathan casts a thorny subject in a revealing new light. (Apr.)