When Doku Umarov, Russia’s most wanted warlord, came forth to claim responsibility in the recent bombing at Moscow’s airport, he threatened that “there are hundreds of our brothers ready to sacrifice their lives to assert the word of Allah."

What he neglected to mention were the “sisters” who are—and had been—ready to do the same. In fact, Moscow’s last suicide attack had been carried out by females, only less than a year ago. Two “Black Widows” had marched into the city’s busy subway, and, strapped with explosives, killed themselves along with at least 40 other people. The attack left Moscow reeling, and the world stunned: a woman did that?

Which begs the question: Does the “female” element of a female suicide bomber warrant independent consideration?

Terrorism expert Mia Bloom says yes. She writes in her book Dying to Kill: “When men conduct suicide missions, they are motivated by religious or nationalist fanaticism, whereas women appear more often motivated by very personal reasons.” While her statement reeks of stereotyping, it is not untrue; it may not even be unfavorable.

Chechnya, a Muslim-majority region in the North Caucasus, has long been unstable, gripped by insurgency following a decades-long battle against Soviet rule. Chechnya wants Islamist autonomy. For this it has suffered numerous attempts by Moscow to directly quell the Chechen rebellion. And while the previous Chechen Wars killed many, they left behind even more aggrieved wives and families, and some of them take up arms in retaliation. Black Widows, in particular, are Chechen widows who take to suicide terrorism in revenge. This is the “personal motivation” Bloom speaks of.

And as demonstrated by the Black Widows, the feminine stereotype—emotional, personal—certainly gets exacerbated in the case of the female suicide bomber.

In her 2007 exclusive report, journalist Jan Goodwin had described her female subject Menake as “shy, soft-spoken — the kind of person you’d trust with your kids.” This “soft-spoken” young woman was also a Black Tiger, an elite suicide bomber from Tamil Tigers, the secular terrorist group in Sri Lanka that operates more female suicide bombers than any other militant group in the world.

Goodwin portrayed her subject as vulnerable and easily coerced, reflecting a sentiment not uncommon everywhere. The world has come to see Menake—and female suicide bombers in general—as female first, fighter second. But unlike all other instances of feminine stereotyping, the female element actually adds to the terrorist’s effectiveness in this case. Women are less suspected and less searched, and invite more widespread publicity for their actions—good for posteriority. And experts have conceded that there are indeed tactical differences for female suicide bombers. Women are also better "in a very specific circumstances of a political assassinations,” explains Robert Pape, a suicide terrorism expert at the University of Chicago and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, where proximity to a specific target is priority.

In other words, their best advantage is being female. India’s assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's supposed last words, "Don't worry, relax," uttered to his bodyguard, testify to this advantage. At a public event, Gandhi had ignored security warnings, and, beckoning to Dhanu, invited the timid young woman to kneel at his feet. As she lowered her head, Dhanu triggered the bomb on her body, killing Gandhi, herself, and 16 others.

A shoe stands in the aftermath of a suicide bomb attack

As for widespread publicity, the idea of a female warrior and martyr really heated up when Wafa Idris, Palestinian’s first female suicide bomber, detonated a bomb on herself in the center of Jerusalem in 2002. She was later heralded throughout the Arab world, “inspiring” young girls to follow in her stead, and “shaming” young men who didn’t. One media report proclaimed her to be “Jesus Christ, Joan of Arc and Mona Lisa” all at once. A major acknowledgment for someone who is a female from a patriarchal religion.

For a woman suicide bomber, it matters less whether or not she was motivated by a “personal” cause or a bigger religious or political cause, than the fact that she works. In the 70s, “shoot the women first” was the advice supposedly given to the German anti-terrorist squad GSG 9, because the female guerrillas at that time were known to be more ruthless, focused, and aggressive than men.

While the female element does lend women an edge, Pape is adamant that the difference between male and female suicide bombers ends there. Behind a woman’s personal motivations, there lies a backdrop of political allegiance – a factor that supersedes gender. He says, “95% of all suicide attacks are driven by a strategic goal to compel a democracy to withdraw combat forces from territory the terrorists pride.”

“Women don’t do it outside of the circumstances of foreign occupation any more than men do.”

Perhaps, at the root of the matter, men and women do share the same vein of latent motivations when it comes to suicide bombing. But for the women, they are also blowing up the very same stereotypes that make them good at their jobs, unknowingly paving way for a new kind of feminine equality. But that is a point that hardly matters, since it was not for equality, nor for 70 virgins, that these women do what they do: it was for their husbands and families, wasn’t it?