In the historical pantheon of societal folk devils, few figures are as rivetingly transgressive as the ISIS female suicide bomber. Burqaed and belted-up to the nines, she is the ultimate Other, transgressing not only civilizational prohibitions against murder and suicide, but also deeply ingrained assumptions about what it means to be a woman in patriarchal societies where women are accorded lesser status. She is a deviant among deviants, exploding the most elemental code of the jihadist worldview: namely, that men are men—which is to say, first and foremost, warriors—and women are women—which is to say, first and foremost, wives and mothers.
She is also almost entirely fictitious, conjured up by ISIS's foes to amplify the group's demonic extremity and desperate unravelling.
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