Appealing to women's obligations to join the Caliphate: Content analysis of IS' English language magazine Dabiq

This paper qualitatively analyzes the content if IS' English magazine Dabiq to look for how they appeal to female recruits. The purpose is to illuminate if a relatively successful terrorist organisation appeals to women's agency (manifesting as appeals to obligations) in their attempts to recruit them; proponents of feminist security studies would expect that they would use such a tactic. A coding scheme is created to determine whether the concept of obligation is being used in articles aimed at women. Further, a scheme is created to determine which theme of obligation is present, if any. Articles aimed at men and at a general audience are also analysed for comparative purposes. Dabiq contains appeals to agency in its articles for women, to themes beyond those which reduce women to objects of male desire. Understanding what sort of messages IS uses in its attempts to recruit women has policy implications for counter-terrorism.