Men, Militarism, and UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis (Critical Security Studies)
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Men, Militarism, and UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis (Critical Security Studies) Customer Reviews
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Case studies of how women change and are changed by millitary
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Examining selected incidents throughout world history, Sandra Whitworth (Associate Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies, York University) then makes her case that women need to assume a more central role throughout the peacekeeping mission process.
Women come into more contact with peacekeeping troops on a daily basis, but are not consulted about their presence and can even become victimized for so-called R&R (as in Cambodia and Somalia).
I think that the 'removed' decision-making which is discussed in this same book has assumed a heightened sense in the e-government era. E government means that an order to dispatch troops can theoretically be given over the Internet--facilitating a public official's complete emotional removal from the consequences of their policies. Such a distance further depersonalizes the population receiving the troops, depersonalized women are at risk of being victimized by their alleged liberators.
Equally important however, Whitworth questions whether these missions can respect the encountered women on their own terms regardless of who is in the peacekeeping ranks. Is peace merely the absence of violence as defined through Western cultural norms or is it consequently the presence of social justice? Since military training officially indoctrinates all soldiers to accept a certain set of values as being 'right', would and/or do women soldiers provide a egalitarian alternative?
One of her most interesting chapters examines post-traumatic stress disorder as it relates to the militarized masculine identity. Rejecting the pop culture construction of these men as 'messed up' and 'unbalanced', Whitworth instead argues that men who are exhibiting culturally 'feminine' (and degraded) characteristics are in fact the ideal peacekeepers (p. 172). It is the military construct which needs to be overhauled; these men should be a model.
She is also skeptical (pp. 220-221) because Security Council resolutions are fixated on doing the same thing in a different matter as opposed to recognizing the fundamental constructs of the existing system as being the problem. She believes that a different methodology of training and directing soldiers is needed.
Whitworth recognizes that some form of military is in fact needed in some cases. However, she wants readers to think about the fundamentally gendered meanings and problems which current military policies are assigning and constantly reinforcing through their actions. This suggests that a feminist and truly peacekeeping military is possible.
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