In the public perception, women’s relationship to violent extremism is often limited to their role as the victims of Islamist terrorists. While the attacks on Pakistani schoolgirls by the Taliban, or the horrific kidnappings and sexual slavery perpetrated by groups like Boko Haram and the Islamic State, deserve the attention of the international community, some analysts believe that our preoccupation with jihadist violence against women may reinforce a worldview that pits the West against Muslim men. Focusing on Islam, they suggest, may also obscure a more complicated reality. After all, in recent years, we have witnessed massacres in Isla Vista, California, and Utoya Island, Norway, carried out by Western extremists who appear to have also been motivated by deep misogyny and by a perception that feminism had disempowered them.

What, exactly, is the role of women in relationship to violent extremism? Does misogyny, on an ideological level, actually drive violent extremism, or are women merely an easy focal point for the angry and disaffected young men for whom extremism seems to hold its greatest appeal? And how can we make sense of the increasing numbers of women who are themselves joining terrorist groups, or of the Islamic State’s recent proclamation that jihad is a duty for women, too?

Please join New America and the Royal Norwegian Consulate General and the Permanent Mission of Norway to the UN as we discuss the complex connection between misogyny and extremist violence as well as the changing roles of women, both within extremist groups and in the fight against them. A reception will follow the discussion.


PARTICIPANTS

Introduction
Anne-Marie Slaughter @SlaughterAM
President and CEO, New America

Welcoming Remarks
Her Excellency Solveig Horne @SolveigHorne
Minister of Children, Equality, and Social Inclusion, Kingdom of Norway

Participants
Alexis Okeowo @alexis_ok
Contributing writer, The New Yorker

Peter Bergen @peterbergencnn
Vice President and Director, International Security, Future of War, and 
Fellows Programs, New America
Author, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abottabad

Mona Eltahawy @monaeltahawy
Author, Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs A Sexual Revolution

Åsne Seierstad @AsneSeierstad
Author, One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacres in Norway

Lydia Polgreen @lpolgreen
Deputy International Editor, The New York Times

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