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This chapter summarizes the three main theoretical contributions of Women in War. First, the gender focus of this book brings novel insights to studies of political violence. Interested publics do not always perceive political violence as “radical.” It also may be considered “righteous.” Mobilizing imagery from the existing sexual order is therefore a powerful means by which almost any violent organization can shape its public face, and may help explain why individuals chose to join violent organizations in the first place. Second, this book extends existing explanations of why women’s gender-bending participation in “radical” movements seldom brings about broader gender changes. It questions whether women are really attracted to radical activism by emancipatory goals in the first place, and suggests instead that women may be propelled to radical activism when they embrace, rather than reject, conservative gender norms. Third, modelling micro-level processes of mobilization is both feasible and desirable. The identity-based model introduced in this book helps scholars understand which macro- and meso-level factors matter for mobilization, how current movement members strategically appropriate those factors to recruit new participants, and what are the various (yet still parsimonious) paths that individuals may follow when joining, participating in, and leaving a movement.

This chapter introduces a new theory of micro-level mobilization that challenges and extends the more common macro- and meso-level approaches to social movement studies. Rooted in the concept of identity, the theory allows scholars to capture and explain individual-level variations in how people participate across three key moments of a social movement: initial mobilization, on-going participation, and re- or de-mobilization. Social movement organizers regularly use emotion-laden narratives to target specific identities for recruitment. Individuals are most likely to accept these invitations when a shifting macro-level context—conceptualized as an “arena”—re-shapes their network memberships and encourages the expansion of their existing identities. Once mobilized, movements assign participants to different tasks, and limit the number and kind of social ties they can form, thus structuring how their identities might change through participation. Finally, the different identities developed through initial mobilization and on-going participation interact in the post-movement environment to determine whether a participant will remain politically active after the initial social movement ends (re-mobilization), or will eschew future political participation (demobilization). The chapter concludes that capturing individual-level variations across participants will improve scholars’ answers to central questions like why social movements begin, how they endure, and whether they change the societies they target.

This chapter introduces the central questions of the book, explains why a micro-level approach is necessary to answer these questions, and foreshadows the answers. It also reviews the data and methods on which the analysis of women guerrillas in the FMLN is based. It then briefly summarizes the book’s theoretical contributions to studies of social movements, gender, and political violence, as well as its contributions to the historiography of civil war in El Salvador.

What happened to women guerrillas after the Peace Accords ended the civil war in El Salvador? Some capitalized on their wartime activism to break gender barriers, transform their own lives, and continue their political activism. Others eschewed further activism and rejected the notion of women’s equality. This chapter demonstrates how the network locations that women occupied during the war intersected with the timing and place of their demobilization to influence women’s post-war opportunities. Those most likely to capitalize on their wartime experiences were women who had either been stationed near FMLN commanders or near international civil society workers during the war. Surprisingly, those who “bent gender” the most during the war—those who took on the most bellicose guerrilla roles—were among the least likely to experience gendered identity transformations or political gains after the war. Scholars have already demonstrated how movement activism can powerfully transform individual activists’ identities, but only a micro-level theory of mobilization provides tools to understand why some identities may transform more (or differently) than others, or why even similar identity changes may result in different post-movement outcomes.