Why are there so few female suicide bombers despite their tactical effectiveness? To explain the rarity of this phenomenon, I examine the tradeoffs that armed groups face when using female suicide bombers. While rigid gender norms make female bombers more effective because security personnel are less suspicious of them, gender inequality also drives down the demand for female suicide bombers. I posit that the tradeoffs of using female bombers induce a curvilinear relationship between women’s status and the prevalence of female suicide bombers. Specifically, I argue that female bombers will be more common in countries with middling levels of gender equality than in highly equal or unequal societies. Using data on over 5,500 suicide attacks, from 1974 to 2016, I find support for this hypothesis.

为什么战术自杀式炸弹袭击者如此之少，为什么如此之少？为了解释这种现象的稀有性，我研究了武装团体在使用女性自杀炸弹手时面临的权衡。严格的性别规范由于安全人员对她们的怀疑程度较低而使女性轰炸机更加有效，而性别不平等也降低了对女性自杀式轰炸机的需求。我认为，使用女性炸弹手的权衡会导致女性地位与女性自杀式炸弹手的流行之间存在曲线关系。我特别指出，在性别平等处于中等水平的国家，女性轰炸机将比高度平等或不平等的社会更为普遍。使用1974年至2016年的5500多次自杀式袭击数据，我发现了这一假设的支持。