De-militarizing masculinities in the age of empire

'Dieser Artikel untersucht kritisch die Beziehung zwischen Männern, vorherrschenden Männlichkeitskonzeptionen und den Prozessen und Praktiken, die ins Spiel kommen, wenn Männlichkeiten militarisiert und zum Kriegszweck eingesetzt werden. Nach einer einleitenden Übersicht über die feministische und nicht feministische Literatur zu Militarisierung und Männlichkeitskonstruktionen konzentriert sich der Artikel auf die Aussichten für eine Demilitarisierung von Männern und Männlichkeitskonstruktionen im US-Empire seit dem 11. September 2001 und insbesondere im Kontext der Kriege in Afghanistan und im Irak unter der Führung der USA. Die Analyse unterscheidet zwischen dem Militär als System, Militarisierung als Prozess und Soldaten als Menschen. Da Kriege nicht ohne militarisierte Männlichkeit zu führen sind, helfen Kriegsgeschichten von Soldaten, die zu einer Demystifizierung des Krieges beitragen, auch die enge Verknüpfung zwischen Männlichkeit und Gewalt zu schwächen oder sogar aufzubrechen. Zu diesem Zweck steht die Analyse der Beschreibungen von Soldaten im Zentrum des Artikels. Eine wichtige Schlussfolgerung des Artikels ist, dass der Prozess der Demilitarisierung ausdrücklich alle Systeme der Herrschaft und Unterdrückung, einschließlich Sexismus, Rassismus und Homophobie, die explizit und implizit im Militarisierungsprozess zur Anwendung kommen, in Frage stellen und delegitimieren muss.' (Autorenreferat)'This article examines critically the relationship between men, dominant conceptions of masculinity, and the processes and practices that are at play as masculinities become militarized and deployed to fight a war. Following a critical review of feminist and non-feminist literature on militarization and masculinities, the article focuses on the prospects for de-militarizing men and masculinities in the United States empire since 11 September 2001 and especially in the context of the US-led wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. The analysis distinguishes between the military as a system, militarization as a process, and soldiers as human beings. As war cannot be fought without militarized masculinities, soldiers' war stories help de-mystify war, also work in turn to weaken, if not undo, the tightly constructed knot between masculinities and violence. Towards this end, a close reading of soldiers' accounts is at the center of the article. A key conclusion of the article is that the process of de-militarization has to explicitly call into question and to de-legitimize all systems of domination and oppression, including sexism, racism, and homophobia, that have been used both explicitly and implicitly during the process of militarization.' (author's abstract

Gender and Conflict Transformation in Israel/Palestine

A careful examination of women’s involvement in peacebuilding and conflict transformation in Israel and Palestine provides a unique perspective on key turning points in the history of the conflict in the past two and one-half decades, since the first Palestinian uprising, knows as the Intifada. The article analyzes the changes in modes of organizing, as well as in the broader vision and key strategies of women’s organizing, mostly at the grassroots level, on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli divide. By exposing the gendered dimensions of the conflict, women activists have began to transform the cultures of their respective collectivities, ensuring that gender and other inequalities and oppressions are not overlooked. Notwithstanding the challenges facing women in both communities, the article concludes that the women who have been working for justice and peace in the region constitute a critical mass that will not only impact the nature of conflict transformation but will also be instrumental in envisioning post-conflict realities

Border collapse and boundary maintenance: militarisation and the micro-geographies of violence in Israel–Palestine

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Drawing upon subaltern geopolitics and feminist geography, this article explores how militarisation shapes micro-geographies of violence and occupation in Israel–Palestine. While accounts of spectacular and large-scale political violence dominate popular imaginaries and academic analyses in/of the region, a shift to the micro-scale foregrounds the relationship between power, politics and space at the level of everyday life. In the context of Israel–Palestine, micro-geographies have revealed dynamic strategies for ‘getting by’ or ‘dealing with’ the occupation, as practiced by Palestinian populations in the face of spatialised violence. However, this article considers how Jewish Israelis actively shape the spatial micro-politics of power within and along the borders of the Israeli state. Based on 12 months of ethnographic research in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem during 2010–2011, an analysis of everyday narratives illustrates how relations of violence, occupation and domination rely upon gendered dynamics of border collapse and boundary maintenance. Here, the borders between home front and battlefield break down at the same time as communal boundaries are reproduced, generating conditions of ‘total militarism’ wherein military interests and agendas are both actively and passively diffused. Through gendering the militarised micro-geographies of violence among Jewish Israelis, this article reveals how individuals construct, navigate and regulate the everyday spaces of occupation, detailing more precisely how macro political power endures.This work was supported by the SOAS, University of London; University of London Central Research Fund

Speaking up in the Age of #MeToo and Persistent Patriarchy or What Can We Learn from an Elevator Incident about Anti-Feminist Backlash

Two women walk into a crowded elevator at a large academic conference… This is not the first line of a joke. Rather, it is the beginning of a troubling ordeal that sheds light on everyday sexism in academia as well as the growing backlash against decades of feminist and social justice activism, which predate the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements

Speaking up in the Age of #MeToo and Persistent Patriarchy or What Can We Learn from an Elevator Incident about Anti-Feminist Backlash

This is an extended version of the same-titled piece by Simona Sharoni that appeared on the Feminist Review blog on 31 May 2018

Sexe, occupation militaire et violence contre les femmes en Israël ou le foyer comme terrain de bataille

Simona Sharoni, Homefront as Battlefield : Gender, Military Occupation and Violence against Women The processes of military manpower acquisition are gendered processes. Military forces past and present have not been able to get, keep and reproduce the sorts of soldiers they imagine they need without drawing on ideological beliefs concerning the different, stratified roles of women and men. To ignore the social construction of femininity and masculinity and the relations between them, makes it impossible to explain adequately how the military establishment has managed to capture and control so much of society's imagination and resources.Sharoni Simona, Passevant Christiane. Sexe, occupation militaire et violence contre les femmes en Israël ou le foyer comme terrain de bataille. In: L'Homme et la société, N. 114, 1994. État démocratique ou état confessionnel ? Autour du conflit israël-palestine. pp. 51-61