Gendering Terrorism in the Courtroom

This article scrutinises the effect of gendered discourses around terrorism on the adjudication of terrorism-related charges. Applying Butler’s notion of gender as performative, it investigates how gender-stereotypical notions surrounding political violence are drawn on by different actors in the legal interrogation of (acts of) terrorism and the material consequences thereof. This article thereby contributes to a growing body of literature that problematises the persistence of a masculinised understanding of violence and its socio-political and legal consequences. Current discourses on political violence continue to posit women with reference to the Beautiful Soul, as the ideal of femininity. As the assumed naturally peaceful other to men’s aggression, women’s violence is, thus, attributed to either feminine qualities such as passivity and submission or a violation of their womanhood. The comprehensive observational analysis of the trial against the German national Carla-Josephine S., reveals that different actors draw on stereotypical notions surrounding female political violence, thereby positioning her at different points on a continuum between the ideal-typical Beautiful and what I call the Broken Soul. In tracing how gendered identity emerged out of a negotiation between these two identities, the article ultimately provides much-needed nuance to our understanding of how gendered discourses of political violence produce material effects.