Abstract
Female participation in political violence is considered a deviance of the norm in most societies. Nevertheless, women have been actively involved in many violent conflicts worldwide, often in combat roles in non-state armed organisations. Why do women become involved in non-state political violence? What are the reasons for non-state armed political groups to decide to involve women in combat roles? In this chapter—the Introduction—Jennifer Philippa Eggert outlines the state of the art of literature on female fighters in non-state armed organisations, highlights the methodological approach of this study and briefly describes its findings. This is followed by a brief discussion of the causes of the civil war in Lebanon, its different phases and the various actors involved.
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Notes
- 1.
I use the terms ‘political violence’ and ‘violent conflict’ interchangeably, while acknowledging that there is a difference between ‘political violence’ and ‘conflict’ (Kalyvas 2006).
- 2.
When I speak of ‘non-state armed groups’ or ‘non-state armed organisations’, I mean non-state armed groups with a political agenda. This is to distinguish between non-state armed political groups and other non-state violent actors such as gangs or other criminal organisations which do not have any political aims. In the Lebanese context, non-state armed political groups involved in the Lebanese civil war are usually referred to as militias.
- 3.
I use the terms ‘fighter’ and ‘combatant’ interchangeably to describe individuals directly participating in combat. For individuals involved in supportive roles, I use the terms ‘militant’ or ‘militia member’. There is often a grey area concerning fighters and civilians. For the purpose of this study, I do not consider individuals who are involved in one-off violent acts to be fighters.
- 4.
This narrative has been challenged by some scholars, such as Adam Jones (2004), who point to the fact that most fighters at times of violent conflict are men and argues that men are, in fact, more affected by violent conflict than women.
- 5.
The main militias during the Lebanese civil war included Lebanese leftist, Palestinian, Christian and Shia groups. Karamé (1995) focuses on the role of women in the Christian militias, whereas Shehadeh (1999) compares the contribution of women in the biggest Christian militia, the Lebanese Kataeb Party (or Kataeb for short) with women’s roles in the Shia groups Amal Movement (also known by its abbreviation Amal) and Hezbollah. Both completely omit the roles of women in the leftist and Palestinian militias. Peteet (1991), Parkinson (2013) and Sayigh (1993) focus on female members of Palestinian organisations only. André-Dessornes (2013) examines female suicide attackers, which were mostly deployed by the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party (SSNP).
- 6.
Most political parties in Lebanon either had a separate militia at the beginning of the war or they formed one after the war broke out. In some cases, the lines between the party and the militia became blurred after the outbreak of the war, which led some interviewees to speak of “politico-military organisations” (interviewee 18). For the sake of clarity, I only use the names of the parties in this thesis and specify whether I speak about the party or the militia, when necessary.
- 7.
An overview of the different militias is included in the appendix.
- 8.
An overview of all interviewees can be found in the appendix.
- 9.
For an alternative analysis of the different stages of the war, see Hirst (2011, pp. 102–103).
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Eggert, J.P. (2022). Women, War and Political Violence. In: Women and the Lebanese Civil War. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83788-4_1
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