Drawing on global data on domestic terrorist incidents (1970-2007) and a subnational natural experiment based on India’s randomly implemented gender quota, this article examines how gender equality influences terrorist organizations’ targeting choices, focusing on attacks against civilians (“soft targets”) versus government or military sites.
The author argues that terrorist groups face a ‘trade-off’ between civilian support and benefiting from the operational ease and media visibility associated with attacking civilian targets. The research finds that higher levels of gender equality are associated with fewer attacks against civilians for two reasons. First, women, on average, show lower approval of violence. Second, as women’s influence in society increases, terrorist organizations become more dependent on their support. As a result, they anticipate greater public rejection of civilian-oriented attacks and thus face stronger incentives to avoid them. However, the study notes that gender equality does not reduce attacks against government institutions and agencies, suggesting that women’s preferences do not uniformly translate into opposition to all forms of political violence. Instead, women’s support varies by the form and target of violence, challenging generalized assumptions that women are inherently peaceful or pacifist.
The article also highlights important variations: internal group ideology, organizational size, and external support all shape whether gender equality affects targeting behavior. Overall, the study underscores the role of gender norms and women’s political agency in understanding terrorist strategy and contributes to broader discussions on gender-responsive analysis within counter-terrorism and P/CVE.