Gina Vale, "The Unforgotten Women of the Islamic State" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Sep 29, 2025

In this enlightening discussion, Gina Vale, a criminologist and gender studies expert, unpacks her book on the often-overlooked experiences of Iraqi, Syrian, and Kurdish women under Islamic State governance. She shares insights from interviews revealing the gendered dynamics of IS's rule, including the harsh restrictions on women's movement and access to public services. Vale also highlights the roles of female morality enforcers and the stark reality behind IS's educational claims, shedding light on the complex lives shaped by this regime.

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INSIGHT

Research Origin And Gap

Dr. Gina Vale found local women's voices underexplored when researching IS governance impacts.
She shifted her project to document what women experienced during IS rule because the baseline data was missing.

ADVICE

Fieldwork Starts With Trusted Networks

Use chain referrals and trusted local networks when researching sensitive conflict-affected communities.
Work with women's rights groups, journalists, and local organizations to build rapport and access participants.

INSIGHT

Stratified Gender Governance

Islamic State built a gender-binarized governance that assigned men public dominance and women domesticity.
Women’s treatment varied sharply by age and ethno-religious identity, producing an intra-gender hierarchy.

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The Unforgotten Women of the Islamic State (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Gina Vale explores the governance of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization through the lives and words of local Iraqi, Syrian, and Kurdish women. While the roles and activities of foreign (predominantly Western), pro-IS women have garnered significant attention, the experiences and insights of local civilian populations have been largely overlooked.

Drawing on the testimonies of 63 local Sunni Muslim and Yazidi women, Dr. Vale exposes the group's intra-gender stratified system of governance. Eligibility for the group's protection, security, 'citizenship', and entrance into the (semi-)public sphere were not universal, but required convergence with the gender norms of IS, through permanent erasure or at least temporary disguise of certain markers of difference. In some cases, this was directed by a pre-meditated 'divide and conquer' strategy, while in others, it manifested as unregulated violences at the hands of individual group members, including women.

The structure follows the trajectory of IS's increasing control over its 'citizens' and captive populations: its militarization of society; imposition of law and order; provision of goods and services; and intervention in civilians' private lives. Analysis of diverse first-hand accounts and the group's documentation reveals that the presence, exclusion, and victimization of local civilian women were necessary to the functioning and legitimation of IS's 'caliphate' project, and the supremacy of affiliated men - and women. As a fledgling proto-state, IS needed local Iraqi, Syrian, and Kurdish women. Though far from represented or protected, they were by no means forgotten.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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