The last American held by ISIS is a 26 year old woman. The Daily Beast.

ISIS fighters. Reuters. 

The last American held by ISIS is a 26 year old woman who was captured in 2013 while trying to help Syrian children. -The Daily Beast. The woman's name has not been released by the media due to her family requesting it be kept secret. It is unclear what her fate will be. In previous executions, ISIS showed the next victim to be executed after every beheading. The woman has not been shown, though ISIS has had no trouble executing women and children before. All of those women and children have been Iraqi or Syrian, none of them have been from a Western country. ISIS is demanding the absurd amount of $6 million dollars for her release. Even if her family could pay, they would likely be charged with a crime because the United States has a no-ransom policy. 

My Comment:

Should ISIS decide to execute this woman the backlash would be immense. As horrible as the other beheadings were, people have become somewhat desensitized by them. It is probably very sexist to say so, but people would care more about the death of a woman then they do about the deaths of  multiple men. That isn't to say that they wouldn't be right to be upset, but in a perfect world the reaction should be the same no matter what the sex of the victim is. I'm fully aware that my opinion is a minority one though, and to be perfectly honest, all my musing on equality might go out the window if I were to watch the execution. I don't like seeing women getting hurt. Period. 

Of course ISIS has no problem whatsoever killing and enslaving women. I've heard stories about what happens to female Kurds who have picked up rifles to join the fight against ISIS who were then captured. Needless to say ISIS did not treat them well. And of course there is the campaign against the Yazidi and Christians in Iraq, where hundreds of women and girls were enslaved. 

These atrocities have largely gone under the radar in the western media. You would think that a world that is overrun with Feminists and other social justice types would have more to say about the brutal deaths and sexual enslavement of hundreds of women, but right now people are more concerned about what kind of shirt a scientist wears. I wish I was joking, but it seems clear that our priorities are completely out of whack. ISIS can degrade, brutalize and rape hundreds of women and the world doesn't care. One guy wears a shirt that has a woman on it and people go nuts. In the grand scheme of things one of those things should outweigh the other.

Here is hoping that somehow, someway this woman, and all the other hostages ISIS has, are saved.