Topics in Military Science: Gender & War Studies

During the Civil War, the Union army—like the society from which it sprang—appeared cohesive enough to withstand four years of grueling war against the Confederates and to claim victory in 1865. But internal fissures were rife within the Union army: class divisions, regional antagonisms, ideological differences, and conflicting personalities all distracted the army from quelling the Southern rebellion.

Until the mid-1830s, southern cotton barons established themselves as the preeminent leaders in a stratified society dominated by wealthy planters. However, Peter Carmichael has argued that The Last Generation (CH, Jan'06, 43-2971) of Virginians from this group was born between 1830 and 1842. Furthermore, they sought their economic future outside the plantations. Northern colleges were filled with scholars chasing Latin and Greek even to obtain positions as clerks, librarians, and teachers.

Spanning the era from the American Revolution to the Civil War, these nine pathbreaking original essays explore the unexpected, competing, or contradictory ways in which southerners made sense of manhood. Employing a rich variety of methodologies, the contributors look at southern masculinity within African American, white, and Native American communities; on the frontier and in towns; and across boundaries of class and age.

This radical new analysis of international politics reveals the crucial role of women in implementing governmental foreign policies, be it Soviet "Glasnost," Britain's dealings in the EEC, or the NATO alliance. Cynthia Enloe pulls back the curtain on the familiar scenes--governments restricting imported goods, bankers negotiating foreign loans, soldiers serving overseas--and shows that the real landscape is less exclusively male.

Ideas of masculinity and femininity become sharply defined in war-reliant societies, resulting in a presumed enmity between men and women. This so-called "battle of the sexes" is intensified by the use of misogyny to encourage men and boys to conform to the demands of masculinity. Love and War describes the making and manipulation of gender in militaristic societies and the sweeping consequences.

Gender roles are nowhere more prominent than in war. Yet contentious debates, and the scattering of scholarship across academic disciplines, have obscured understanding of how gender affects war and vice versa. In this authoritative and lively review of our state of knowledge, Joshua Goldstein assesses the possible explanations for the near-total exclusion of women from combat forces, through history and across cultures.

Laura Sjoberg positions gender and gender subordination as key factors in the making and fighting of global conflict. Through the lens of gender, she examines the meaning, causes, practices, and experiences of war, building a more inclusive approach to the analysis of violent conflict between states

Women have fought in wars, either as women or covertly dressed as men, throughout the history of warfare, but only recently have they been allowed to join state militaries, insurgent groups, and terrorist organizations in unprecedented numbers. This begs the question - how useful are traditional gendered categories in understanding the dynamics of war and conflict? And why are our stories of gender roles in war typically so narrow? Who benefits from them?

This book defines the relationship between gender and international security, analyzing and critiquing international security theory and practice from a gendered perspective.

This ambitious interdisciplinary effort combines feminist theory, man studies, international relations theory (IR), and cultural studies. Hooper goes beyond established feminist critiques of a masculinized IR as she examines the role of IR in shaping, defining, or legitimizing masculinity. She illuminates three interrelated points: that IR might influence men and masculinity as well as be influenced by them; that a number of masculinities are at play in IR; and how globalization, as it challenges a state-centered IR, also challenge hegemonic forms of masculinity, in particular the Anglo-American form.

Following on from the seminal The Man Question in International Relations this book looks at the increasingly violent and 'toxic' nature of world politics post 9/11. Contributors including Raewyn Connell, Kimberley Hutchings, Cynthia Enloe, Kevin Dunn and Sandra Whitworth consider the diverse theoretical and practical implications of masculinity for international relations in the modern world. Covering theoretical issues including masculine theories of war, masculinity and the military, cyborg soldiers, post-traumatic stress disorder and white male privilege. The book also focuses on the ways in which masculinity configures world events from conscientious objection in South Africa to 'porno-nationalism' in India, from myths and heroes in Kosovo to the makings of Zimbabwe. This essential work will define the field for many years to come.

A major contribution to our understanding of war and international relations (IR). Divided into two sections, the first part surveys the state of war and war studies in international relations, security studies and in feminist international relations. The second part addresses a missing area of IR studies of war that feminism is well-placed to fill in: the emotional and physical aspects of war. The author examines a wide variety of conflict situations, such as the Israel/Palestine dispute, the Cold War, Vietnam, Nicaragua, wars of liberation in Africa, genocidal war in Rwanda; humanitarian interventionist war in the Balkans, the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the 'war on terror'.