Rethinking Terrorism: A Contextual Analysis of a Female Terrorist in Fatima Bhutto’s The Shadow of Crescent Moon

Abstract

Although female participation in terrorism and violence remained an infrequent happening in the
past, contemporary times have observed a drastic increase in the number of female terrorist
activities. With the increase in number of female terrorists, many researchers have tried to find out
the motives and causes behind their involvement in terror attacks. Majority of these studies focused
on the study of stereotypical image of female terrorists who are projected as victims of patriarchy
by the media. On the contrary, the probability of their strong political commitment to fight for
peace has rarely been considered. Addressing this void, this paper, by adopting the theoretical
framework of Cragin and Daly (2009), throws a challenge to the stereotypical media image of the
female terrorist, who is presented as both a passive and ignorant victim of oppression devoid of any
political conscience. This paper considers the representation of a female terrorist in Fatima
Bhutto’s novel, Shadow of the Crescent Moon to identify the ways in which the political forces
responsible for the chaos and instability of Mir Ali mobilize female participation in terrorism as the
only viable route to restore peace of their land.