Abstract
That gender makes war and vice versa is an idea taken up by various scholars in recent years, not only those engaged in gender research. Indeed, one of the key issues raised by this edited collection is the reluctance of many feminist scholars to engage with war and militaries for fear of legitimizing militaristic practices. The collection does indeed point toward ways in which feminism has been misused, but it also highlights the necessity for feminist and gender scholars to shed light on war and gender as co-constitutive. The collection’s originality lies in bringing together explorations of how making gender and making war have become so intertwined. In highlighting what would be missed if feminists did not ask ‘those difficult war questions,’ as Sylvester puts it in her preface, and in suggesting ways that feminist and gender scholars can challenge often unexplored links between gender and war, this edited collection makes important contributions to our understanding of gender making and war making alike.
A central aim of the collection is to examine gender in everyday, institutionalized contexts of war making, where gender norms are too often rendered invisible. To this end, the collection is divided into four overlapping themes. The first two chapters take up the task of ‘Conceptualizing Gender, Violence, Militarism.’ Cynthia Cockburn’s insightful piece challenges ‘accepted wisdom’ of war as organized, calculated, and contained, instead suggesting that women’s experiences make known the “messy cultural detail of armed conflict” (p. 26, her emphasis). Her attention to the local and situated reveals war to be “relational,” “systemic,” and also a “continuum” (p. 27). Gender shapes men’s and women’s experiences of war differently; it intersects with other power relations, including capitalism, colonization, ethnicity, and religion to enable and embed war; and it sustains transnational war preparedness, making it harder to detach violence in wider society from its perpetuation at the macro level. Importantly, Cockburn reminds us that gender is not destiny. She contends that there “are no certainties, only probabilities” (p. 25) and therefore concludes that it is these probabilities—not determinations—that make it so vital for women to resist war as women and men to do so as men. As the title of her earlier book suggests gender is not all encompassing but we can perhaps more readily see its effects and implications From Where We Stand (Cockburn 2007).
Jeff Hearn’s chapter similarly underlines the value of focusing on what men and masculinities do. He examines some of the “very obvious,” “obvious,” and “fairly obvious” ways in which men and militarism are “coupled,” arguing that this is a vital, ongoing task because “the extent of connections is more extensive than often presumed” (p. 36). What he demonstrates is how men’s gender performances in war and militarism are marked by complexity and contradiction; men can suffer, resist, and unwittingly reinforce male collective power, as well as being the ones who “almost always” kill (p. 47). Like Cockburn, Hearn reminds us of the necessity of thinking through how gender positions. His astute conclusion is that no matter how obvious the connections between men, masculinities, and institutions of war and militarism may seem, scholars must continue to investigate the ‘taken-for-granted.’
Cockburn’s and Hearn’s conceptualizations are evident throughout the collection. In the second themed section on how gender makes/remakes the nation, the emphasis on institutional practices and the resilience of gender norms are especially clear in Juakarainen’s analysis of all-male conscription and the production/reproduction of the nation in Finland, and in Eduards’ analysis of the gap between Swedish military discourse on the value of women soldiers and their actual experiences. Both chapters highlight how militaries reentrench gender assumptions and national identity but also the need to expose them. Laugen Haaland provides further insight into the complexities of men’s gendered performances, recognizing that ‘military masculinities’ are incongruous to gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping, but also that this term needs to be better defined to reflect what is actually ‘military’ about masculinities, and what is perhaps better problematized as an expression of wider relations. Finally, Biricik’s chapter revisits Cockburn’s notion of war as relational, systemic, and a continuum by demonstrating the interconnectedness of different state institutions in Turkey in reproducing “a militarist-masculine national identity in every generation” (p. 87) through the practice of ‘medically’ exempting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens from mandatory military service.
The third theme brings together chapters that reflect on ‘traveling concepts,’ which refers to those ways in which feminist ideas can be altered and adjusted as they are utilized in new settings. In separate chapters by Hebert and Freedman, the commitment to ‘gender mainstreaming’ in the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) is revealed as superficial by the repeated characterization of women refugees as victims, and the failure to deal with sexual misconduct by peacekeepers, respectively. McLeod’s chapter provides a different account of traveling concepts by exploring how women in black have adapted UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) for their own purposes. The drafting and passing of the resolution, which stresses the role, equal participation, and involvement of women in the prevention and resolution of conflict, has been seen as a ‘feminist achievement’ by many. It involved a concerted effort on the part of civil society and nongovernmental groups, largely comprising women. However, 1325 has also been deeply criticized because while it recognizes the particular challenges of war for women and stresses that they should have a place at the peace negotiating table, its provisions place war itself beyond critique, thus reinforcing the insecurity and marginality of women in conflict. McLeod’s analysis of how women in black utilize some of 1325’s provisions to reinforce their feminist–antimilitarist agenda shows very clearly that concepts can travel in multiple directions though. She also brings the local back into view, demonstrating once again how the micro and macro are co-constitutive sites for the making/remaking of gender and war.
The final theme examines how gender subjectivities produce/reproduce organized violence. Penttinen’s chapter on Nordic women in international crisis management characterizes 1325 as an “add-women-and-hope” approach by demonstrating that women’s contributions to such missions primarily serve the image of the ‘international community’ rather than the affected. Parashar’s chapter discusses militant women and the need to guard against generalizing women’s experiences and treating violent women as exceptional if we are to better understand how gender reproduces violence. Finally, Higate’s contribution offers ways of thinking through how gender intersects with capitalism, militarism, and colonization through an analysis of multiple masculinities in private security. Cockburn’s idea of war as relational, systemic, and a continuum hover close by.
In her preface, Sylvester frames this collection as ‘homesteading’: the idea that feminism is no passing phase and that it must therefore be accommodated within the academy and beyond. By the end of the collection, it becomes clear just how important ‘homesteading’ is for the editors and authors. The acknowledgments reveal that the collection emerged from conversations at a conference and a collective approach to writing that involved contributors commenting on each other’s work. The editors and authors not only highlight the need to homestead feminist research on war therefore but are themselves actively engaged in efforts that could promote positive transformations in gender relations by homesteading feminist practices in their own institutions. Some will remain uncomfortable with feminism’s engagements with questions of war, militarism, and militarization, but this collection highlights the need to pose these questions; and much like wider feminist contributions to the academy, those who are willing to ask them are, fortunately, here to stay.