Citation

Kirk MD. Atl. J. Commun. 2022; 30(3): 278-296.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/15456870.2021.1903467

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

As suicide bombers during the Second Intifada of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian females reflected a sustained involvement in political activism dating back to the early-20th century. However, as suicide bombers, Palestinian females gained considerable notoriety in Western media discourse because of their gendered participation. This not only challenges the use of their female bodies for destructive, rather than reproductive, purposes but also long-held orientalist discourse propagating the alleged-oppression of non-Western females in historic and contemporary Western literature, including via the practice of veiling. Despite martyrdom videos contextually locating these females within political violence, their veiled appearance challenged orientalist discourse concerning their gendered participatory agency. Examining U.K. and U.S. broadcast news media, this article seeks to assess the presence of traditionally orientalist frameworks in Palestinian female suicide bombers' coverage and whether or not these contribute toward a de-legitimization of their political agency, via discourse surrounding representations of their allegedly oppressed female bodies. © 2021 Atlantic Journal of Communication.

Language: en