International Relations Theory. What insights does feminist IR bring to the study of war?

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What insights does feminist IR bring to the study of war?

POLS214 – International Relations Theory

Seminar Tutor: Linda Åhäll

Banner Code: 08 20900

Student ID: 1024193

War, both politically and physically has many gender stereotypes. There are many exceptionally different ways, on an international scale, in which war effects women. These stem from women having to go through the grievance of being mothers and lovers back at home (Karam, 2000: 3) to family dispossession; being actual wartime victims through violence, such as rape, and even being frontline fighters. However, it is also argued that many areas of feminist agenda, throughout many different conflicts, have occasionally come out victorious at least some what (Diedrich and Fischer-Hornung, 1990: 3). This essay is going to deal with some of the insights feminism brings to the study of war, not only in terms of women, as there is a common, incorrect, interpretation that ‘women’ is simply a synonym for ‘feminist’ (Gullace, 2003: 142). This essay will acknowledge the differences, internationally, into how women and war coexist by looking at gender stereotypes present between men and women in terms of the military and during war time. It will also look at potential reasoning as to why there is a difference in mentality between men and women in times of war.

British women during the two World Wars were praised for their ‘womanly and motherly’ way of life. The propaganda of the Allies stressed the adoption, moreover the amplification, of linking “women with mothers and men with soldiers” (Grayzel, cited in Gullace, 2003: 142). Grayzel writes that placing the two genders into such normative categories conveniently dismisses other forms of gender stereotypes and subtly grants women an allowance to proceed with the jobs conventionally done by men, such as the factory work women had to take over for (Gullace, 2003: 142). Additionally it re-enforces the role of motherhood to women so that they understood that “the home and family were still the proper sphere to which they were expected to return to after the war”. This was due to there being no more “need for patriotic female self sacrifice” (Diedrich and Fischer-Hornung, 1990: 6/7). This drastically differs from the treatment of German women during the Wars. Gullace writes that “the general population scarcely accepted women’s responsibilities as mothers” (2003: 142). This was due to the national circumstances of the two countries. It also emphasises the claim that the gender stereotype linking women with mothers is simply a social construction (Dombrowski, 1999: 3). Internationally, many wars in countries such as Algeria, Ethiopia, Lebanon (Khrais, 2010) have seen women not only take on explicit combat roles such as para-military, doctors or spies, in deadly situations (Karam, 2000: 4), but also as sex-slaves and rape victims, for example, Bosnia (Schickova, 2010). A final prominent feminist insight into the study of the social aspect of women and war is the idea that, as much as women do indeed suffer from war in many cases much in the same way as men, they do, and have, however “gained from conflict situations” (Karam, 2000: 22); one such case study of course being the women of the Allied Forces. While a great number of the male, and therefore labour dominating, workforce were off fighting for their nations, the gap in the jobs, now left abandoned, needed filling (Diedrich and Fischer-Hornung, 1990: 7). This gave women a chance to show their worth and ultimately showed that women could do what many stereotypically thought otherwise; it showed the self reliance in women and ultimately, it can be seen as “a step forward for the women’s cause”, an obvious example being British women obtaining the vote (Diedrich and Fischer-Hornung, 1990: 3).

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To say the military is not a man’s world would be overtly naïve; a quick look at the ratio between women and men in the world’s militaries shows that 91% of the British Armed Forces, for example, are male (MOD, 2010). These internationally common statistics are what most feminist thinkers suggest as being proof of the correlation between the military and masculinity. There are many argued reasons for this such as the unofficial exclusion of women from the military (Meyer, 1999: 186), to the lack of desire amongst women to participate in such practices (Conover and Shapiro, 1993: 1080). ...

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