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The problem with the 'women of ISIL'

Deeply problematic media narratives on Islam and women go unchallanged, distracting from the difficult questions and warping perceptions directly involved in justifying western military intervention in the Middle East.

By Janine Rich
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Procyk Radek/Shutterstock. All rights reserved.

The startlingly swift rise of the terrorist group self-titled the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has once again fueled the fire of the endlessly futile and reductive debate in western media about the “real” nature of Islam (Is it peaceful? Is it evil? Shall we ask Bill Maher again?).

As this hopeless tug-of-war match rages on, another deeply problematic media narrative has once more risen to the surface and gone largely unchallenged: Muslim women, and particularly the “women of ISIL.” The terms “ISIS Bride”, and “ISIS sex slave” scream hysterically from the tickers of Fox News and grab readers by the collar in 36-point font from MSNBC online. They are meaningless terms, useful only to tantalise and titillate viewers into reading past the headline.

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