Framing the ‘White Widow’: Using intersectionality to uncover complex representations of female terrorism in news media

Introduction

Following 21 September 2013, news media outlets in the UK offered extensive and elaborate coverage of the Westgate Mall massacre in Nairobi, Kenya. This attack was executed by Al-Shabaab, a Somali Islamist group with strong links to Al-Qaeda, in retaliation against Kenya’s military support of the African Union’s presence in Somalia. According to media reports, the attacks began with people with guns storming the mall, setting off grenades, taking hostages and shooting anyone who was not believed to be a devout Muslim. The result was a four-day siege that killed over 60 civilians (‘Al-Shabaab targeted after Nairobi attack’, 2013). British news coverage focused on the involvement of Samantha Lewthwaite who became the subject of news stories speculating about the extent of her involvement as well as her whereabouts. This suspicion arose from hostage reports that the voice of a British woman could be heard in the mall and from reports that Kenyan authorities found an apartment containing her belongings in close proximity to the mall. Despite the lack of concrete proof of her involvement or her specific role in the attack, some journalists have gone so far as to claim that she is a terrorist ‘mastermind’ and that she coordinated the massacre. This reporting is especially tenuous considering Al-Shabaab denied the involvement of women in its Westgate operation. Nevertheless, shortly after the Westgate attack, and at the request of Kenyan authorities, Interpol issued a warrant for her arrest in which she is accused of ‘being in possession of explosives and conspiracy to commit a felony dating back to December 2011’ (Interpol, 2013).

While Westgate prompted a surge of attention about Lewthwaite, this was not the first time that she was covered by mainstream media in Britain. In fact, she first appeared in the media in 2005 in association with her late husband Jermaine Lindsay, one of the male terrorists who perpetrated the London Underground bombings on 7 July 2005, also known as the 7/7 bombings. It was then that she became a subject of curiosity to journalists who reported on her relationship with her husband, and looked to her to comment on his involvement in terrorist activity. Lewthwaite disappeared in 2011 after growing suspicion that she was involved in a bomb plot. News reports generally agree that Lewthwaite then travelled to West Africa, where she hid until the Westgate attacks. The details of this are vague and she has not physically re-emerged since this time to provide clarification, although she has periodically had a presence on social media. Nevertheless, she continues to reappear in news stories in association with terrorist activity and has come to be widely known as the ‘White Widow’.

The fact that Lewthwaite received a high volume of media coverage is unsurprising considering the well-known and widespread tendency for journalists to sensationalize stories about female terrorists. What is more interesting is how Lewthwaite was represented. Like many female terrorists, Lewthwaite has a multifaceted identity characterized by both privilege and marginality. Instead of offering a thorough investigation of Lewthwaite’s putative role in the attack, journalists drew attention to her age, race, nationality, gender, religious affiliation, and class. In this article, we conceptualize journalism as a process of differentiation which refers to ‘the ways in which subjectivities and social differences are produced, such as through discourses or practices of gendering, racialization, ethnicization, culturalization, sexualization, and so on.’ (Dhamoon, 2011: 234). In other words, journalism is a process imbued with power, through which social differences are (re)produced in ways that can either maintain or challenge social understandings of privilege and marginality. We employ an intersectional approach to explore the ways that identities converge in mediated representations of Lewthwaite and how the resulting news narrative may affect social hierarchies. To do so, we analyze 375 online British articles from broadsheet and tabloid news sources from 7 January 2005 to 31 December 2015. We find that news media both vilify and normalize Lewthwaite, using complex constellations of identity in ways that could not be accounted for by isolating gender as a variable in analysis, or by conceptualizing identity in an additive or hierarchical way. Therefore, we argue that the application of intersectionality results in a more holistic understanding of the content and discursive impact of news narratives about female terrorists.

Mediated representations of female terrorists

The extent of women’s involvement in terrorism continues to be understated in popular discourse despite mounting evidence that women have been perpetrators of terrorism and political violence throughout modern history. Indeed, the mere fact that these women continue to be referred to as ‘female’ terrorists in news media is indicative of their perceived abnormality (Alison, 2004; Jaworski, 2010). In reality, women have been both leaders and supporters of terrorist, nationalist, militarist, ethno-separatist, religio-fundamentalist, and other violent groups. They have worked as informers, collaborators, recruiters, bait, shields, bombers, logisticians, and foot soldiers. Finally, while it is true that men are more active in terrorism than women, it is also true that women receive a disproportionate amount of media attention compared to men (Bloom, 2011; Conway and McInerney, 2012; Sjoberg and Gentry, 2008). In fact, in 2011, Mia Bloom found that women receive approximately eight times more media attention than men for perpetrating similar kinds of terrorist acts (p. 7). Additionally, media fixate on the personal lives and gendered identities of female terrorists in a way that supersedes their political aspirations (Conway and McInerney, 2012). These tendencies reflect the widespread belief that there is something exceptional about violent women, a belief that is used to sensationalize news stories. Scholars widely agree that this is due to the prevalence of essentialist understandings about womanhood, which lead us to believe that women are not naturally inclined to perpetrate terrorism because they are not naturally violent (Alison, 2004; Berkowitz, 2005; Gardner, 2007; Jacques and Taylor, 2009; Nacos, 2005; Patkin, 2004). Journalists capitalize on essentialist myths and stereotypes, using them to rationalize women’s role in terrorism through rhetorical devices called news frames. ¹

Scholars who have studied mediated representations of female terrorists have uncovered a variety of news frames evident in reporting. In 2005, Claudia Brunner examined the media portrayal of several Palestinian female terrorists, including Wafa Idris, Hanadi Jaradat, and Ayat Akhras. Idris is considered the first female suicide bomber. In January 2002, she deployed a bomb in the centre of a shopping district in Jerusalem. In reporting on this attack, journalists initially disseminated the rumor that she may not have deployed the bomb intentionally, and when the Al-Aqsa brigades finally confessed to the attack, journalists focused their narratives on Idris’s biography and personal life. They emphasized that she was supposedly infertile and living with her mother after a compulsory divorce. They depicted her as a desperate social outcast, traumatically affected by the Israeli occupation (Brunner, 2005: 32). Shortly after, in March 2002, Ayat Akhras committed a suicide bombing. In her video, she stated that she was driven by political motives. Nevertheless, the media questioned the rationality of her motives and framed her romantically as a ‘Palestinian Bride’ (p. 33). Then, in October 2003, Hanadi Jaradat committed an act of suicide terrorism at a restaurant in Haifa. Journalists framed her story as an attempt to take revenge for the death of her brother (p. 34). In January 2004, Reem Saleh al-Riyashi committed an act of suicide terrorism. The media were perplexed that a 22-year-old mother of two small children would commit this attack. They circulated rumors that her husband had driven her to the checkpoint to atone for the adultery that she supposedly committed (p. 34). For Brunner, these women are predominantly portrayed through the frames of sexuality and motherhood.

Maternalism, pathology, and sexuality are three of the most highly utilized news frames employed by journalists. Maternalism refers to the notion that due to women’s biological ability to be mothers, their participation in politics is driven by their emotional desire to preserve life. Journalists often rationalize female terrorism as a product of disturbances in women’s domestic environments, including the loss of their loved ones and their homes. Journalists also tend to pathologize female terrorism, explaining it as a result of mental illness or instability (Ahall, 2012a, 2012b; Laster and Erez, 2015; Marway, 2011; Sela-Shayovitz, 2007; Sjoberg and Gentry, 2008). They perform ‘psychological autopsies’, reporting on personal and family histories in an attempt to understand what ‘went wrong’ that drove these women to perpetrate acts of terrorism (Ahall, 2012a, 2012b; Bloom, 2011; Laster and Erez, 2015; Marway, 2011). Finally, journalists link female violence to issues with sexuality. Female terrorists are often reported to be either sex-crazed or sexually dysfunctional. In both cases, journalists explain female terrorism as an inability to meet what is perceived to be a normal standard of sexuality (Brunner, 2005; Friedman, 2008; Sjoberg and Gentry, 2008). Each of these news narratives has the potential to obfuscate women’s real motivations for perpetrating terrorism, and instead reinforces the essentialist belief that women’s violence is socio-biological (Ahall, 2012a; Gentry, 2009; Sjoberg and Gentry, 2008).

For example, Katherine E Brown (2011) argues that the story of Muriel Degauque, Europe’s first female suicide bomber, was retold by journalists in a way that cast her in a support role, manipulated by her husband to perpetrate terrorism. Journalists explained that Degauque’s behavior was triggered by mental illness and a troubled sexual past, characterized by promiscuity and failed relationships. Journalists emphasized the number of boyfriends she had, and alluded to the idea that her interest in men made her vulnerable to manipulation. This was Degauque’s representation in media despite claims that it was Degauque who encouraged her husband to join Jihad (Bloom, 2011). Additionally, in the case of the Chechen ‘Black Widows’, Barbara Friedman (2008) notes that journalists explained women’s decision to perpetrate terrorism as a product of their inability to have children and subsequent divorce. In these cases, and many more like them, female terrorists are portrayed as driven to violence because of a dysfunctional gender identity. When news stories about female terrorists are told through the discourses of maternalism and domesticity, they reinforce myths about gendered forms of essentialism, and about the division between the public and private sphere (Sjoberg and Gentry, 2008).

Scholars have also identified and drawn upon typologies of news frames. Bridgette Nacos (2005), a rather prolific author within this field, identified six news frames commonly used by journalists. She conducted an extensive qualitative review of news media representations of female terrorists and found that there are six frames commonly used: the Physical Appearance Frame emphasizes the way that women look and dress (p. 439); the Family Connection Frame describes the tendency for journalists to focus on the family backgrounds and upbringings of female terrorists (p. 440); the Terrorist for the Sake of Love Frame supports the idea that women are driven to terrorism by the men they love as opposed to their deeply held political aspirations (p. 441); the Women’s Liberation/Equality Frame casts female terrorism as a deviant form of feminism, or an egregious expression of gender equality; the Tough-as-Males/Tougher-than-Men Frame explores the idea that in order to prove that she belongs, a female terrorist will be more cruel, deadly, and fanatical than her male counterparts (p. 444); and, finally, the Bored, Naïve, and Out of Touch with Reality Frame depicts female terrorists as perpetrating terrorism because of deficiencies in their socialization (p. 445).

More recent studies have reaffirmed the use of these news frames. For instance, Maura Conway and Lisa McInerney (2012) conducted a case study of Colleen LaRose or ‘Jihad Jane’, who was charged with four terrorism offenses. They compared LaRose’s coverage to that of her male counterparts and found that LaRose received a greater volume of coverage, as well as a different type of coverage. Unlike the way that media framed these men, journalists focused on LaRose’s height, body shape, skin color, hair color and style, and eye color (p. 13). The media also used the family connection frame and, although LaRose had no close relatives, press coverage mentioned her boyfriend’s father whom she cared for until his death. Her sexual and marital relationships also received a high amount of media attention (p. 16). Journalists implied that the purpose of her use of the internet for recruitment was a form of online dating. Finally, journalists portrayed her as out of touch with reality, mentioning her failed marriages and suicide attempts. They cited her as a ‘cat lady’ after talking to a neighbor who said that she talked to her cats (p. 18).

Similarly, Lavie-Dinur et al. (2013) draw on frames that, they note, go ‘hand-in-hand’ with Nacos’s framework. In their article, they explore media portrayals of three Israeli women: Tali Fahima, Anat Kamm, and Hanin Zoubi. They find that there are three frames used to portray these women. Zoubi was framed as the Single Militant. Journalists characterized her as being motivated to commit crime because of her failure to fulfill putatively ‘feminine’ roles as a wife and mother (p. 328). Kamm was framed as a Good Girl Gone Bad which refers to the tendency for journalists to construct the image of the ‘good girl’ and measure female criminals against this image. Journalists portray women dichotomously as ‘good/bad’ or ‘virgin/whore’ (p. 329). Finally, Fahima was represented through the Sake of Love frame. Through this frame, journalists emphasize ‘love connections’ between female terrorists and their lovers, husbands, male family members, or friends. The continued use of gendered news frames minimizes the perception of women as threatening by reinforcing the idea that ‘violent women’ are paradoxical and that terrorism is an inherently masculine domain (Autcher, 2012; Conway and McInerney, 2012; Gardner, 2007; Jaworski, 2010; Lavie-Dinur et al., 2013; Nacos, 2005).

Like Nacos, Elizabeth Gardner (2007) constructed a typology of news frames used to portray female terrorists; however, she took a quantitative approach, resulting in the following categories: Nationalism, Revenge, Desire for Martyrdom, Escape, Victimization, Religious Cause, Redemption, Feminist Pride, and Other (p. 918). Gardner also found 11 physical and demographic descriptors of female terrorists used by the media, including: home country or town, terrorist group affiliation, wearing or carrying a weapon, age, clothing, marital status, physical attributes such as face and stature, and whether the terrorist was a mother (p. 920). For Gardner, this work is significant because it leads to broader questions about the agency of female terrorists. She asks, ‘whose voice is retelling the stories of these women?’ and ‘what does this tell us about gender violence, in general?’ In Gardner’s sample of media stories, she notes that most cases were not written from the female terrorists’ perspective. Instead, news reporters rationalize female involvement in violence in a way that marginalizes the voices of female terrorists in favor of speculation.

These authors demonstrate the ways that journalists emphasize the gender identities of female terrorists. This emphasis undermines women’s agency in perpetrating acts of terrorism, disseminates misinformation about terrorism to publics, and reproduces gendered forms of essentialism. While these conclusions are important, we believe that they offer an incomplete picture of the content and discursive impact of news narratives.

Methodology

Findings

Instead of offering a thorough investigation of Lewthwaite’s putative role in the attack, we found that journalists drew attention to her age, race, nationality, gender, religious affiliation, and class. We conceptualize journalism as a process of differentiation which refers to ‘the ways in which subjectivities and social differences are produced, such as through discourses or practices of gendering, racialization, ethnicization, culturalization, sexualization, and so on’ (Dhamoon, 2011: 234). In other words, journalism is a process imbued with power, through which social differences are (re)produced in ways that can either maintain or challenge social understandings of privilege and marginality. We explored how journalists attempt to reconcile Lewthwaite’s participation in terrorist activity with these character traits, and revealed that news narratives both normalize and vilify Lewthwaite.

The mere fact that Lewthwaite’s widely used nickname is the ‘White Widow’ is indicative of the centrality of identity to representations of her in news media. While it is unknown where this nickname originated, it is reminiscent of the ‘Black Widows’ of Chechnya who have been said to wear black in protest against Russian occupation, and have been known to be heavily engaged in terrorist activity; as well as the deadly ‘Black Widow’ spider that insidiously mates with males before consuming them. Included in most headlines, Lewthwaite’s gendered, sexualized, and racialized identity as the ‘White Widow’ is drawn on to spark consumer interest in her, and make her newsworthy. The inclusion of Lewthwaite’s whiteness is used by journalists in a way that sets her apart from other female terrorists. This implies that her whiteness makes her unique, and subsequently that white people are not the typical perpetrators of terrorism. As a ‘widow’, Lewthwaite’s narrative is complicated, and her gender identity is implicated in the uniqueness of her case. Taken together, Lewthwaite is deemed newsworthy because white (widowed) women are unlikely perpetrators of terrorism. It is very clear that journalists attempt to negotiate Lewthwaite as both an ‘insider’ and an ‘outsider’ in relation to their audience. This alludes to ‘who’ journalists believe their audiences to be, implicitly racializing and gendering what it means to be a Briton, i.e. white and not Muslim. For a woman, normalcy in the British context also means subscribing to the norms typically associated with femininity.

Journalists often account for what separates Lewthwaite from ‘ordinary’ Britons implicitly, for instance, through an interview with a former councillor in Aylesbury, Raj Khan, who supposedly knew Lewthwaite and her family. A journalist from The Mirror wrote:

Councillor Raj Khan, whose family knew Lewthwaite’s family socially in Aylesbury, said he is surprised at speculation she is involved in the attack in Kenya due to how he remembers her. ‘She was an average, British, young, ordinary girl. She had a very great personality. She didn’t have very good confidence,’ he said. (Rudd, 2013)

Lewthwaite is deemed to have been ‘ordinary’, and from this starting point, journalists often go on to rationalize her involvement in terrorism by focusing on what differentiates her from ‘normal’ Britons. In this case, the journalist chose to include a marginal male figure from Lewthwaite’s past to characterize her personality, as opposed to a friend or family member, and with little justification. Additionally, by including Khan’s comments without significant explanation, journalists affirm the idea that what constitutes a great personality in a young British woman is to lack confidence, normalizing what is termed a ‘confidence gap’ between, especially young, women and men without an attempt to critically address this (see, for example, Orenstein, 1994).

In contrast to approaches that typify or utilize gender-based news frames, we find that understanding how Lewthwaite is represented requires an analysis of complex constellations of identity. In each case, journalists contrast what is ‘normal’ with what is ‘deviant’ and as a result reproduce social hierarchies. Journalists from The Daily Mail wrote:

Samantha Lewthwaite was attending the end-of-year ball at her school in Aylesbury. She dazzled, by all accounts, in a pink silk ball gown set off by a diamante tiara and matching gold earrings and necklace. ‘She looked fantastic that night,’ recalled one admirer. The date was 2001. It was possibly the last time she received such a compliment. Shortly afterwards, at the age of 17, she converted to Islam and began wearing a jilbab, the long flowing robe that covers everything but the hands and face. (Bracchi and Evans, 2013)

The idea that Lewthwaite might not have received a compliment about her physical appearance after converting to Islam and choosing to wear a jilbab implies that it is not ‘normal’ for a young British girl to convert to Islam or to choose to dress ‘modestly’ over ‘femininely’. More broadly, this discussion of Lewthwaite’s conversion to Islam both reinforces hegemonic standards of femininity, and subordinates all young Muslim women who choose to dress modestly as part of their religion or culture. It suggests that, while physical appearance is important, young Muslim women could not possibly ‘look fantastic’ because their identities situate them outside of an ideal version of femininity. For many consumers, reading this in the overarching context of terrorism, Muslim women, and women who convert to Islam, may be deemed suspect by comparison to stereotypically feminine women.

Journalists place importance on the confluence of Lewthwaite’s age, gender, and religious identity, but particularly on her conversion to Islam, consistently referring to her as a ‘Muslim convert’ or as having converted to Islam at an early age. This is used in various contexts to negotiate the ways in which she is (or was) ordinary, while simultaneously casting her as an ‘outsider’. A journalist from The Times wrote:

The daughter of a former British Army soldier, Ms. Lewthwaite converted to Islam as a teenager and met Lindsay through an internet chatroom. They married in 2002 and three years later, just before the birth of their second child, he detonated a rucksack bomb on a Piccadilly Line train at King’s Cross, killing 26 of the 52 victims who died in the 7/7 attacks. (O’Neill, 2012)

A journalist from The Sun wrote:

Born in County Down in 1983, she lived in a terraced house in Aylesbury with her mum and former soldier dad. She was friends with a Muslim family and converted at 18, after her parents divorced. Her interest in politics led her to an internet chat room in 2002, where she met Germaine Lindsay, her future husband. In 2004, aged 20, she had a child – and by the following summer was pregnant again. (Allen, 2013)

Lewthwaite’s father’s occupation as a British soldier, as well as the appearance of her childhood home, is a consistent theme in reporting on Lewthwaite’s life before she became involved in terrorist activity. Her mother is mentioned less often, and is not referred to by any occupational title, but instead as a wife and/or a mother. Through this emphasis, journalists place importance on Lewthwaite having come from a hetero-, patriarchal, middle-class family. They contrast this image with her conversion to Islam and pregnancy at an early age following her parents’ divorce. It is implied that the psychological impact of the divorce led her to be influenced by her Muslim friends and by Germaine Lindsay. In the former quote, Lindsay is vilified through his participation in the 7/7 bombing, and in many instances journalists either allude to or explicitly state that Lindsay influenced Lewthwaite’s pursuit of terrorism. In the latter quote, the journalist mentions Lewthwaite’s interest in politics, but as being what led her to a chat room where she found her future husband. In this way, her political aspirations are superseded by her gender identity and familial aspirations.

Mediated representations of Lewthwaite also emphasize her fertility, referring to her as ‘pregnant’, a ‘wife’, ‘mother’, ‘daughter’, and/or ‘schoolgirl’ who seems to be fixated on family planning. These images are complicated, however, by her ‘promiscuity’. News media are fascinated by her relationships with men, often speculating about the identities of the fathers of two of her children. One reporter from The Telegraph wrote:

Lindsay’s widow, who converted to Islam when she was 18, gave birth to her latest son at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, Bucks. A family insider told the News of the World: ‘Samantha told me the father is a Muslim Moroccan from Birmingham. ‘I think she is the second wife – it appealed to her because she liked having the security of a husband to provide for her. (Hough, 2009)

Another reporter from The Times wrote:

Before she could be arrested, she fled in the company of Habib Ghani, from West London, who is also alleged to be linked to the al-Shabaab terror cell. It was reported this month that Ghani, who is said to be the father of Ms Lewthwaite’s third child, had been killed in a gun battle in Somalia. (O’Neil and Hamilton, 2013)

In the journalistic retelling of events, it is deemed newsworthy that Lewthwaite had multiple relationships with non-white men, and that one of these men is a polygamist. Having established that it is ‘normal’ for Lewthwaite to have come from a heteronormative, monogamous household, this is one way in which news media make Lewthwaite intelligible to consumers. This is harmful because in the retelling of events, within an overarching narrative about how an ‘ordinary’ British girl became a terrorist, a non-white, Muslim, man from Briton is vilified. Other men who, while not a part of this story, share this identity are implicitly cast as deviant. Moreover, journalists subjugate mixed-race relationships and non-monogamous relationships, treating them as ‘abnormal’.

Moreover, journalists depict her as radicalizing her children. Journalists take interest in diaries and notebooks supposedly belonging to Lewthwaite that were found by police. Many cite Lewthwaite’s children’s desire to be holy warriors as inspiring her. Lewthwaite is presented as being motivated by her children’s desire to fight in the holy war. A journalist from The Independent wrote:

A notebook found by police at the Kenyan house rented by Lewthwaite, and allegedly written by her, contained the framework for a guide to Jihad. The handwritten document said the inspiration for the book was given by Lewthwaite’s two children, five and eight, who told their mother they wanted to be holy warriors when they grew up. (‘Who is the White Widow Samantha Lewthwaite? 10 things you need to know’, 2013)

Emphasis on Lewthwaite’s fertility constructs her agency within a gendered, racialized, and religious lens, through which she is a British, Muslim mother who raises radicalized children that she bore from several non-white men. The prelude to statements about her radicalizing her children is suspicion that she was encouraged by men in her life, particularly a Muslim man named Abdullah el-Faisal. A journalist from The Telegraph wrote: ‘Convicted hate preacher Abdullah el-Faisal claims he mentored Samantha Lewthwaite, the “White Widow”, and even arranged her second marriage’ (Malnick, 2014). Lewthwaite’s politics, encouraging her children to fight in the ‘holy war’ is constructed not as a choice she made but as a product of religious and gendered manipulation. A journalist from The Mirror wrote, ‘Another radical, Abdullah el-Faisal, is said to have radicalised Lewthwaite after husband Germaine Lindsay killed himself in the 7/7 attacks’ (Pettifor and Myers, 2013). Whether Lewthwaite was ‘mentored’ or ‘radicalized’, el-Faisal is portrayed as a prominent figure in her life who led her toward jihad. This not only diminishes Lewthwaite’s agency but also warns the public against manipulation by dangerous Muslim men.

Ultimately, Lewthwaite’s case demonstrates how media accounts privilege a certain version of the ‘ordinary’ or ‘normal’ Briton, i.e. white, middle-class, Christian, and raised in a hetero-, patriarchal, monogamous family. They do this by situating this identity formation as unremarkable. News media, reflecting the current hegemonic norms and values in British society, ‘other’ Lewthwaite to reconcile the ways in which she is ‘ordinary’ with the ways that she is ‘remarkable’. Lewthwaite’s previous status as ‘ordinary’ or ‘normal’ is consolidated with descriptions of her as a white girl who lived in a terraced house with her mom and (former soldier) dad, and dressed up in pink for the prom. Her transition from ‘good girl’ to terrorist is made comprehensible by emphasizing a conversion to Islam at a young age, a willingness to wear the jilbab, and to bear multiple children with multiple non-white men. By blaming men for radicalizing her, the media distance her alleged actions from the identity of the ‘normal’ British woman. Moreover, emphasizing her fertility constructs her agency within a gendered, racialized lens; she is a mother who raises radicalized children. The sentiment that Lewthwaite transitioned from an ‘ordinary’ person to a terrorist, as a prominent theme in news narratives, is clear, whether implicitly as has been described, or explicitly. As a journalist from The Mirror very pointedly wrote, ‘The development is likely to lead to further shock and disbelief for the friends and family of the radicalised British housewife in leafy Buckinghamshire where she used to live an unremarkable life’ (Robson, 2013).

Conclusion

Consistent with prior research, Lewthwaite’s gender identity is certainly an important part of the news narrative and was represented through the use of essentialist myths and stereotypes. It was amplified through news frames and discursive themes that utilized her maternity, sexuality, naivety, upbringing, physical appearance, and personal life to make sense of her transition from an ‘ordinary’ Briton to a terrorist. Moreover, her political aspirations were rendered non-existent. Her deviancy was instead attributed to the manipulativeness of Muslim men. Yet, as we have demonstrated, a gender-based analysis is not enough to understand the ways that social hierarchies of difference are reproduced through the news narrative. Lewthwaite has a multifaceted identity characterized by varying forms of both privilege and marginality. Reporting mirrors this complexity, as journalists drew attention to her age, race, nationality, gender, religious affiliation, and class.

As a process of differentiation, journalists and their editors constructed news narratives which normalized and vilified Lewthwaite, using her identity to re-establish what it means to be an ‘ordinary’ Briton, i.e. white, non-Muslim, heterosexual, and monogamous. In doing so, they also drew boundaries around who is ‘deviant’. Lewthwaite’s case thus demonstrates the utility of applications of intersectionality in research on representations of female terrorists in media. In doing so, it moves the field forward by broadening the scope of the feminist agenda that much of the literature takes up. Adopting an intersectional framework for media analysis will enable us to better see the intimate relationships between privilege and marginality, the differences among and between female and male terrorists, and even the way that the confluence of different identity categories impacts upon coverage of male terrorists alone.

Moving forward, scholarship may choose to work toward reconciling the perceived incongruencies between quantitative research and intersectional theory. A widely applicable framework for intersectional media content analysis would allow researchers to move beyond small-n case studies to large-n studies enabling a broader theorization about how identity impacts upon coverage of men and women terrorists. Scholarship may also want to endeavor to comparatively analyze how men and women terrorists are portrayed in news media within an intersectional framework. This may add to or dispute previous findings that suggest that there are fundamental differences between coverage of men and women. Lastly, while the fact that Lewthwaite is a terrorist suspect peaked our interest in the case, we were unable to offer a comprehensive analysis of how this may affect the ways in which she was covered in relation to coverage of women who were proven to have perpetrated terrorism. We suspect that this contextual difference is important, and that women’s role in violence as suspects or perpetrators may shape media coverage.

Pursuing research at the nexus of gender, media, and terrorism continues to be important considering news media continue to be one of the most influential mediums through which people come to learn about what terrorism is, what is being done to prevent terrorism, and how terrorism affects our lives (Coe et al., 2007; Conway, 2012). Intersectional approaches will facilitate a more meaningful investigation into how social differences are (re)produced through news narratives, which makes us more equipped to hold journalists, editors, and corporate owners accountable for the dissemination of misinformation and harmful stereotypes. Considering the increasing involvement of women in terrorist activity, and the high level of media attention that they receive, journalistic objectivity and accountability are ever more important. Applications of intersectionality continue to be highly contested theoretically and methodologically, but as we have demonstrated, they are certainly worth pursuing.