To launch RUSI’s ‘Decoding Counterterrorism’ podcast, hosts Jessica White and Raffaello Pantucci are joined by Emily Winterbotham and Katherine Brown to delve into the complexity of gender in counterterrorism. Gender inequality can itself be a driver of violent extremism, and gendered dynamics of ideologies, radicalisation, recruitment and participation all need to be considered. Governments tend to make policy agreements at a high level to include women in security programming, but this often does not carry through to implementation. There needs to be a meaningful commitment by governments to mainstream gender in this way, so that women are not just added in without considering why they were not there to begin with, and to take into account how gender impacts all individuals. Following from this, what actions need to be taken in order to gather gendered data on local counterterrorism contexts, and to improve the effectiveness of policy and programming?