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Mothers, Bombers, Beauty Queens: Chechen Women's Roles In The Russo-Chechen Conflict, Francine Banner

Francine Banner

History is written on the body. Factors such as historical, social, and cultural exigencies produce bodies of a determinate type. In the Chechen Republic, women's bodies have been front and center in struggles to raise birthrates in order to secure ethnic advancement and promote a sense of peace and national unity in periods after time of strife. They have been the focus of discussions over modesty, adherence to tradition, and religious observance, as women took the stage as contestants in beauty pageants. And they have been at the forefront in debates over Chechen terrorism, with the "black widows" of Chechnya …