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How does the prevalence of female combatants in a rebel group influence conflict severity? Previous research has investigated the impact conflict has on women but has overlooked women’s contributions to conflict. Diverging from this paradigm, recent quantitative research has investigated why women join rebellions, why rebel groups recruit them, and how this affects conflict dynamics and outcomes. This study contributes to this new direction by asking how the gender composition of a rebel group influences the number of battle deaths amassed during a conflict. I hypothesize that a higher prevalence of female combatants in a rebel group increases conflict severity. I argue that female combatants increase rebel group capabilities, creating parity between rebel-state dyads, which then produces a greater quantity of battle deaths. Using a dataset on women’s prevalence in 211 rebel groups between 1989 and 2014, I run an ordinary least squares regression model to test my hypothesis. This study’s empirical evidence shows support for my hypothesis but does not yield any substantive indication of how female combatants contribute to severity. The causal mechanism behind this relationship remains for future research to uncover.

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Mainstream portrayals of women in research, politics, and media during armed conflict often limit them to the roles of victims or, at best, peacemakers, disregarding their diverse and active participation. This study challenges such binary portrayals by investigating the involvement of women in armed conflict, particularly why some regions experience high levels of female combatants while others do not. It posits that close proximity to conflict enhances women's opportunities and willingness to engage in combat, leading to an increase in the fraction of female combatants relative to men. Using a comparative case study design, this research analyzes regions in southeast Ukraine based on their proximity to the Donbas conflict zone from 2014 to 2018. The empirical findings support the hypothesis, indicating that greater proximity to conflict zones increases the likelihood of female combatants. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of women's roles in armed conflicts and offer valuable insights for the field of peace and conflict studies by shedding light on the disruption of societalgender roles during times of conflict, thus revealing broader societal impacts of violence and war.