Elsevier

Women's Studies International Forum

Volume 30, Issue 1, January–February 2007, Pages 16-25
Women's Studies International Forum

Double jeopardy: Women, the US military and the war in Iraq

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2006.12.002Get rights and content

Synopsis

This article argues that women in the military are in double jeopardy. They face the danger of rape from their male colleagues as well as the ordinary dangers of being killed or wounded by the enemy. They are used to send messages from one masculine military to another in their very bodies. This is particularly clear in the case of Lynndie England and the Abu Ghraib tortures where her womanhood, and sexual use of her by her comrades, were used as weapons to humiliate Iraqi prisoners. This sexual violence from their own side is the result of the fact that militaries are founded upon an aggressive masculinity that is vital to enable warfare to continue. For this reason the argument that it is important from the point of view of equal opportunities for women to be in all areas of the military, including the frontline, falls down. If aggressive masculinity is the necessary foundation of the military rather than being an unfortunate hangover of patriarchy, then women cannot be equal in this institution. Women's organizations should not be using the language of women's rights in calling for the subjection of women to these forms of violence.

Section snippets

Sexual domination and the military

Some feminist critics of the military and of militarization have pointed out not just that the military is a masculine institution, as are other institutions that women seek to enter such as the police force or fire service, but that it requires masculinity in order to function (Enloe, 1983, Enloe, 2000, Morgan, 1989). Men in male dominated organizations have a tendency to use what Laura Miller calls ‘gender harassment’, to distinguish it from sexual harassment, in order to resist the intrusion

Rapes of US military women

In recent years there have been a number of scandals about the serious sexual harassment of women in the US military. In the Tailhook affair the harassment seems to have been undertaken as a form of male bonding (Enloe, 2000). Tailhookers are navy carrier pilots. At their annual convention in 1991 Tailhookers engaged in behaviour where they made airforce women run through a hotel corridor whilst men on either side stripped off the women's clothes and sexually assaulted them. There have been

Sexual use of women as message bearers between men

It is not just the rate of rape and sexual harassment that suggests that there is something incorrigible about military masculinity. The use of US women soldiers by both the Iraqi combatants and the US military to send messages to the other side, shows that militaries see themselves as engaged in struggles between groups of masculine men for whom women are viewed as symbols of femininity. For instance in other side, for example being impregnated by their captors before being sent back, as were

Should feminists campaign for women's equal opportunities in the military?

One feminist theorist who has suggested that feminists should work towards equal opportunities in the military is Charlotte Hooper, author of Manly States, a critique of the masculinism of international relations in practice and in theory. She considers that it is worthwhile for women to enter such masculine spaces and suggests that even the ‘marginal appearance of women…together with feminist ideas…may sufficiently alter the overall ambience of such spaces that their masculine associations

References (48)

  • Evelynne Accad

    The phallus of September 11

  • Neale Adams

    Iraqi cleric's sick appeal to followers

    The Express

    (2004, 8 May)
  • Madelaine Adelman

    The military, militarism, and the militarization of domestic violence

    Violence Against Women

    (2003, 9 Sept)
  • Jim Bartlett

    Females wary as military rapes surface

    United Press International 27 February

    (2004)
  • Maki Becker

    The face behind a nation's shame

    Daily News (NY)

    (2004, May 7)
  • Susan Brownmiller

    Against our will. Men, women and rape

    (1975)
  • Linda Burnham

    Sexual domination in uniform: An American value

    Counterpunch

    (2004, 25 June)
  • April Carter

    Women, military service and citizenship

  • Rupert Cornwell

    Iraq crisis: US officials split on whether to release images of abuse

    (2004, May 14)
  • Pippa Crerar

    Iraqis crawled in broken glass

    Daily Record (Scotland)

    (2004, 19 May)
  • Custody Battles

    Custody battles for Michigan women soldiers heading to Iraq

    (2004, 29 October)
  • Editorial

    Enemy within the gates

    The Baltimore Sun

    (2004, March 2)
  • Jean Bethke Elshtain

    Shooting' at the wrong target: A response to Van Creveld

    Millennium: Journal of International Studies

    (2000)
  • Cynthia Enloe

    Does Khaki become you

    (1983)
  • Cynthia Enloe

    It takes two

  • Cynthia Enloe

    Maneuvres

    The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives

    (2000)
  • Susan Faludi

    Stiffed. The betrayal of the modern man

    (1999)
  • Suzanne Goldenberg

    Abu Ghraib guilty plea thrown out

    Guardian

    (2005, 5 May)
  • Habib ‘tortured with prostitute’ 2005, Retrieved January 27 from...
  • Lindy Heinecken

    Securing South Africa's future: Putting women in the frontline

    Strategic Review for Southern Africa

    (2000, November)
  • Cathy Hong

    When will the U.S. military tackle the problem of sexual abuse? Salon.com

    (2004, May 18)
  • Charlotte Hooper

    Manly states. Masculinities, international relations, and gender politics

    (2001)
  • Donna Hughes

    Not unfamiliar

    National Review

    (2004, 6 May)
  • Patricia Hynes

    On the battlefield of women's bodies: An overview of the harm of war to women

    Women's Studies International Forum

    (2004)
  • View full text