The Role of Women and Girls in the Eyes of Islamic State: A Content Analysis of Dabiq and Rumiyah Magazines

Abstract

The article analyses a large content of the English-language magazines Dabiq and Rumiyah. They provide a significant amount of content for research on the role of women (mostly Western) in jihadi terrorism. The author attempts to understand the leading themes related to women and girls exploited in these sources. A major objective is to discover and understand the Islamic State’s approach towards women and girls, as well as their role in the self-proclaimed caliphate. To reach this goal, quantitative and qualitative content analysis is used. Research confirmed that both magazines contain special sections for women and interviews with female followers. IS has proved to be relatively tolerant of the inconsistence of its ideology. The author acknowledges that the magazines discussed were inconsistent, or rather variant in the application of its message. This is particularly true to the role of women.