Hezbollah’s Women in Resistance: Contemporary Roles and Beliefs

Research in conflict studies highlights women’s contributions to conflict resolution, yet it remains unclear whether these findings apply to violent Muslim movements. Existing literature often portrays women in such groups as passive victims subordinated to male authority in the name of radical religious ideology. Gender studies, however, suggest that women frequently pursue independent - and potentially peacebuilding - agendas by drawing on, rather than challenging, Islamic principles. This paper analyzes 59 original ethnographic interviews conducted in Arabic with women within Hezbollah and the broader Shia community in Lebanon. Because women in Hezbollah are typically inaccessible, this dataset is unique and was gathered through long-term engagement with female gatekeepers in Hezbollah and supplementary recruitment outside Hezbollah networks. Fieldwork was carried out over six months between 2022 and 2024. To analyze the interviews, the study combines computer-assisted qualitative techniques with quantitative text-analysis tools for Arabic. Using the Farasa parser, it performs part-of-speech tagging and word-frequency analysis, automating key steps in identifying recurring themes and improving the replicability of the analysis. These procedures highlight expressions shared across interviews, which are then examined qualitatively to uncover core beliefs and behaviors relevant to theories on political violence and gender. The findings show that women engage in a much wider range of activities than those outlined by Hezbollah’s male leadership. According to the writings of Imam Khamanei, which are taught by Hezbollah’s women branch, women’s primary role lies in family care. Nevertheless, each of the interviewees performs much broader societal roles, through both employment – e.g., as cleaners, fundraisers, journalists, doctors, or policy advisers – and community activities – e.g. educating others, helping the poor, or planning events. Moving beyond family care, these activities allow women to assume roles that are traditionally associated with men, such as breadwinning and representing Hezbollah in the broader society. While largely abstaining from battle and formal politics in line with organizational rules, Hezbollah’s women emphasize participation in “soft jihad” against the perceived negative influence of technology and Western ideas and support armed resistance through raising the next generation of fighters. These activities are grounded in beliefs that women have a broader skillset than men, that organizational justice is more important than gender equality, and that Western feminist views are based on incorrect assumptions about social reality.