A Mans’s World? Reaffirming the Idea of Gender in United States Countering Violent Extremism Programming

Abstract

The global war on terror was marked by the ongoing targeting of militant groups and their leaders, often in nations entrenched in conflict. The prolonged war and the subsequent rise of violent extremism escalated attacks on women’s rights and freedoms. During this time, women’s agency drastically grew both as members of terror groups and as instrumental actors in policy and decision-making circles. The counterterrorism and policy response in the post-9/11 world focused heavily on kinetic security and law-enforcement-based programming and practices. Emerging out of counterterrorism, globally and in the United States, was Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), an approach that was thought to be more grounded in human rights by addressing what policymakers considered to be the root causes of radicalization and seeking to re-build (or build) civil society. While the broad results of such efforts are far clear or definitive, it remains true that CVE programs, which are a key element of US policy, merit scrutiny to determine whether they can be adjusted to better achieve stated objectives—or, more broadly, inclusive development objectives—by making them more gender inclusive and deeply grounded in human rights. This professional paper aims to use a feminist approach to analyze the agency of women in this realm, how they are addressed in countering violent extremism programming, and propose a way forward of how programming, in the future, can be more gender-inclusive and sensitive. The main question is how can we better engage women and girls when countering extremism?