In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of 'soft' approaches to violent extremism and terrorism including dialogue, reconciliation, cooperation, and close work with communities. However, despite increasing calls for gender-sensitive approaches to counter-extremism, gender continues to be overlooked and underestimated - both by counter-extremism and human rights practitioners and academics.

This book brings together academics, NGO researchers, activists and practitioners from the UK to provide a systematic analysis of Muslim women's 'gendered experience' of terrorism and counterterrorismradicalization, including how individuals and members of groups experience maintain particular survival strategies in the face ofviolence and discrimination, mistrust and intimidation, but also how they use opportunities to work for better futures for themselves, their communities and wider societyfor positive engagement in the light of intersectional marginalisation. Across four parts, the book covers why British Muslim women may support terrorism; how they survive terrorism; their experiences of Islamophobia and racism in the context of counter-terrorism initiatives, relating to being subject to Islamophobia and suspicion; and their experiences of working as practitioners and activists working on counterterrorism.

By examining women's diverse relationships to terrorism and counterterrorism,and from the perspective of intersectional experiences marginalisation (taking account of gender, faith, ethnicity and race), the book moves past simplistic depictions of women as 'the victim', 'the perpetrator' or 'the solution'. Instead, the volume adds nuance and critical reflection to polarised debates in which complexity often gets lost.