Women & Terrorism: The 1970s Phenomenon

What does a "female terrorist" look like? What does she act like? Is she an attractive seductress wearing ripped-up, revealing army gear? Or is she a "man-hating butch" with cropped hair & boy-ish clothing? What comes to mind when you think of a woman-terrorist? The woman above on the left or on the right? Only one of those women is an actual terrorist, and let me give you hint: it is not the cartoon.

The fact of women being terrorists that arose in the 1960s and really peaked in the 1970s was one that broke all the rules of stereotyped gender roles. By society's standards, women were not meant to be acting out in any form of violence, be it for a cause they so firmly believed in or even in self-defense. Aggression was a male-dominated characteristic. With the emphasis placed on moral tradition in the 1950s came the rebellion of the youth culture who began to feel more and more restless and repressed by authorities (parents, teachers & the government, for example). This restlessness and repression was felt by women in particular. Along with the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 70s rose the desire within women to join or form groups that fought for a cause they believed in. One of the most famous terrorists of the 1970s in Germany was Ulrike Meinhof (above, right) of the The Baader-Meinhof Gang or the RAF (Red Army Faciton), a radical Marxist group who performed terrorist acts such as bombing and bank robbery in a protest against capitalist imperialism. There have been several psychological studies done on Meinhof to try to understand why she became such a "violent woman," she being the first of a "new militant breed" (Miller) and one of the supposed leaders of the most feared terrorist group in post-war Germany. Conventional gender roles were being threatened by women such as Meinhof, which is what made her so puzzling and intriguing to so many in the 1970s.

On this website, I will focus on Ulrike Meinhof and her role as the first female terrorist in Germany, as well as the image of women as terrorists in the 1970s and today.

Ulrike Meinhof
The Image of Women Terrorists in the 1970s