Because women are naturally less violent.

In weak democracies and exclusionary governments the world over, people seem more willing than ever to sacrifice their lives for a statement.

The question is, which people?

We're getting used to seeing children with guns and bombs, but it's easy for us to blame that on their fathers. Their teachers. The men who "control their societies." Apparently, it's harder for us to think of terror as a force that can be women-driven.

In Russia, not long ago, Chechen women in black shrouds kept watchful eyes on terrified would-be theater-goers. But they were not in charge of the project, and some expressed a desire not to be there. Generally, they seemed to be more compassionate than their camo-clad counterparts. I hadn't thought much about female-driven terrorism in Russia since.

Until today, when a women suspected of intending to blow up the Parliament building detonated herself in Moscow.

Because at least there, if I'm not mistaken, that represents a change in the nature of women's role in global terrorism.

In Iraq. In Pakistan. In Spain, says Deborah Scroggins, women are taking their place in a movement that we seem to understand less and less. Is it surprising that we would find women, in some cases independently of men's organizations, charging forward with acts of terror? No, but given the popular idea that terror=Islamic terror and Islam=submissive women, something about it doesn't fit the way we've been thinking about terror.

Not to draw all my content from this month's Vogue, but I couldn't pass over this paragraph:

In March, a woman calling herself Um Osama told a London-based Arabic newspaper that Al Qaeda was setting up training camps of its own forr female martyrs. "We are building a women's structure that will carry out operations that will make the US forget its name," she boasted. The FBI responded to Um Osama by issuing a bulletin warning local law-enforcement agencies that Al Qaeda might start using women in its operations. But, as Jessica Stern [Harvard University] points out, while the Department of Homeland Security has required men over sixteen from many Muslim-majority countries to register with the police, it has made no such requirement of women from the same countries. Add to this the special advantages that Islamic customs of veiling and seclusion would give female terrorists, and you see why Stern and others believe it is only a matter of time before Al Qaeda will overcome whatever combination of religious scruples and macho attitudes has so far prevented it from using women.

Indeed, I can see that, thanks. And that's why I'll say that we can't fight terrorism without doing the kind of controversial investigation that some of my most conservative counterparts will call an attempt to "justify terror" or to "understaaaand" (in a whiny voice) "whyyy they do what they dooo." If our security policies are so restrictive in their application that we can't even account for half of the world's potential terrorists, we have a problem.

Is this really a "new development"? Does it reflect an increase in the number of serious female terrorists? Or does it, more worryingly/interestingly, reflect a change in the role that women play in international terrorism?

I'll go out there and say it does, and assert, further, that it will require some changes to our policies if we're going to know enough about terror to defend ourselves against it.

After all, there are still people around here who seem to believe we're, like, naturally nurturing or inherently anti-violent or always Democrats or something. And you know, in the face of that kind of ignorance, nothing gets done.