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Women and War: Militarism, Bodies, and the Practice of Gender
Author(s) -
Riley Robin L.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
sociology compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 31
ISSN - 1751-9020
DOI - 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00132.x
Subject(s) - militarism , masculinity , femininity , invisibility , gender studies , sociology , visibility , state (computer science) , political science , law , politics , physics , optics , algorithm , computer science
Women around the world, in various geographic spaces, social and cultural contexts, as partners, wives, sisters, daughters, mothers, mourners, and victims experience war. Women's experience of war and their participation in it, either as actors or resistors, victims or perpetrators (Moser and Clark 2001), cheerleaders or critics, are always influenced by the construction of gender operating in and around their lives. While constructions of masculinity and femininity are always circulating in and around militarism and war, women's bodies are sometimes primary considerations for military and state leaders; this creates a visibility/invisibility/hyper‐visibility problem for women in wartime. In this essay, women's participation in war as soldiers, refugees, prisoners, jailers, activists, and suicide bombers and the accompanying shift in the practice of femininity and masculinity is explored.