The writing of heroines: Motherhood and female agency in political violence

This article explores the way in which female agency in political violence is enabled through gender. It looks at two examples of heroine stories – the cases of British Navy sailor Faye Turney and the popular film Female Agents (2008) – to illustrate how female agency in political violence is constructed at the expense of motherhood. The article argues that representations of female agency in political violence involve a tension between a life-giving and a life-taking identity, and that agency is only enabled if this tension is removed or overcome. This suggests that heroism, as agency in political violence, is in a symbiotic relationship with motherhood: heroism functions as motherhood's constitutive other and vice versa. This means not only that the writing of heroines depends on ideas about female bodies' association with motherhood but also that essentialist ideas about gender are reinforced. Accordingly, this article suggests that female agency in political violence is communicated and negotiated through motherhood, even in cases where this might not be immediately apparent.