About Article

The root causes, nature and impact of Indonesian women’s involve ment in terrorism has yet to influence Indonesian Counter Terrorism (CT) and Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) policies. Through a feminist discourse analysis of semi-structured interviews with 28 Indonesian government representatives, this article argues that Indonesian CT and PVE policies continue to rely on gender stereo types rather than addressing the gendered realities of Indonesian women’s relationship with violent extremism. This reflects broader global discourses regarding women and terrorism but are shaped by unique religious, cultural, political and historical influences within the Indonesian context – the Indonesian gender order. This article finds that the stereotypes – depicting female extremists as immature, brainwashed and poor – lead to a generalised applic ability of the one-size-fits-all approach of income generation, over looking female extremists’ culpability, focusing on protection of “women and children”, neglecting the roles diverse actors in CT and PVE efforts, and reinforcing the Indonesian gender order.