Female perpetrators are a lot more common than we think, but they often fall through the legal net. They either don't face trial or when they do, they often manage to use gender narratives to get lower sentences and better conditions. What are we missing when we don't take female perpetrators seriously? Why do our societies and legal systems still struggle with them?

In this second episode of Conflicts of Interest, we discussed this topic with Izabela Steflja, Assistant Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in the Department of Political Science Ontario Canada, and Jessica Trisko Darden, Assistant Professor Prof. of Political Science at Virginia Commonwealth University in the US. Authors of the book "Women as War Criminals: Gender, Agency & Justice," published in 2020 by Sanford University Press, they argue why post-conflict justice systems often fail to assign blame to women. Through the cases of former politicians Biljana Plavšić and Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, they explain the conceptual frames of "Mother, Whore, Monster," applied by actors within the court and the media to create narratives around these women. They also analyze how these narratives benefited or harmed both women accused of war crimes based on their identity (race, religion, or political rank).