The Veil of Gender: De-Sensationalizing the Lethality of Female Suicide Terrorism

Abstract Popular belief suggests that female suicide terrorists cause more fatalities than their male counterparts. The argument for the superiority of female lethality largely derives from qualitative research, such as anecdotal episodes or small-n case studies, though quantitative research continues to grow. While qualitative studies provide detailed insights into the behaviors of female suicide bombers, the findings can be difficult to generalize. This short essay presents a quantitative examination to assess the validity of this prevailing belief. First, we put forth a brief theoretical discussion: female bombers merely replace depleted male cadres, exhibiting little active participation or inadequate training and, thus, no greater lethality. Second, we perform empirical testing based on an original, incident-level dataset of 6,800 suicide attacks during the period from 1985 through 2017. Our large-n quantitative analysis contradicts the widely held belief in the literature and reveals that female suicide bombers inflict fewer fatalities than their male counterparts.