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Militarism today has become a significant threat to healthy democracies and a pertinent obstacle in the way of achieving human security. Military budgets have risen enormously in the past few decades. Militarism encircles much more than just the armed forces of a particular State and their activities.The ideological manifestations of militarism create a culture of fear and support the use of aggression, bloodshed, and military interventions for settling internal and external disputes in order to enforce economic and political interests. It penetrates deep into the lives of people, including women.Even though militarism is considered to be 'men's work,' women are not left untouched by the armed conflicts and military ideologies and values. The brunt of militarism and war is most often borne by women and children disproportionately. Women and girls are the easiest target of sexual violence in a militarized context, thereby bearing the most significant costs.The present paper seeks to analyze militarism from the gender lens and thus broaden our understanding.

The objective of this paper is to analyse  militarism through a gender lens.

Gender, War, and militarism

Militarism has gender dynamics, and there are many facets of it. Militarism, war, and gender are incrediblyunified social productions. These three are informed by and endorsed by one another.Gender stereotypes and institutional bias within the military are not new. It is an essential condition of militarism. Mary Kaldor, who coined the term 'new wars,' says that warfare has a different face now and new wars more than pure interstate conflicts. Instead, they are “a mixture of war, organized crime, and massive violations of human rights. The actors are both global and local, public and private” (Kaldor, 2006).

It is generally believed war runs through the veins of men, but in reality, it is taught to men by attaching masculine norms to the military and fighting (Goldstein, 2003). Jean Elshtain (1995) was instrumental in identifying that war histories are very often told in terms of brave, selfless, ‘just warrior’ men who defend naïve, beautiful soul women. In the context of the First Gulf War, Cynthia Enloe (1993) stated that “the U. S. intervention in the Gulf would be harder to justify if there were no feminized victims”.

The military has a stereotypical masculine and patriarchal culture. War and militarism are considered to be 'men's work .'Men are often presented as uncontrolled and unpredictable when it comes to violence. However, women bear the most significant burden/impact of armed conflicts and militarist ideologies. Military trains men to kill. Men are also the majority of combatants in all wars and more men than women die in combat. The notion of combat plays a crucial role in constructing the notions of manhood. It also justifies the supremacy of maleness in society. Women also die, but they die as civilians or because of malnutrition, sexual violence, accidents, etc. It is no secret that end number of women are raped and sexually abused/violated during times of armed conflicts. Women are also a chunk of the population who are displaced by armed conflicts. Feminists have been questioning the role of military values in shaping the ideological structure of patriarchy.

R W Connell (1985) recognizes three different types of masculinity that create the foundation of the military: “physically violent but subordinate to orders on the one hand, dominating and organizationally competent on the other hand,” and “the professionalized, calculative rationality of the technical specialist”.She also explicitly links the military with hegemonic masculinity as she says, “violence on the largest possible scale is the purpose of the military, and no arena has been more important for the definition of hegemonic masculinity in European/American culture” (Connell, 2005).

Also, there are strong interlinks between militarism and gender-based violence. This is the result of the gendered socialization of girls and boys right from infancy. There are several examples where political violence has resulted in or is accompanied by gender-based violence. During and after the wars and conflicts, women and girls are subjected to the highest forms of violence against women.

Where are the Women?

There is a sexual division of war, just like a sexual division of labour where women and men play different roles. Militaristic ideologies look at women, not as active participants but as passive observers. Women are vastly underrepresented in the military and police globally. Most of these women served as nurses, low-ranking officers, language specialists, air traffic controllers etc. However, they were not the ones who carried the guns. Governments and politicians asked them to join the military as a moral imperative that had nothing to do with political rhetoric. Women were and are still told that security, diplomacy, and defense affairs are not for women. However, their moral obligation is to contribute toward their nation by helping the men in war and the military. Women are rarely given warrior-type tasks.The war system works to push women away from killing roles except in the direstcrises, such as when defending their homes and children.

In the context of the Vietnam War, almost all stories, songs, novels, memoirs etc were written by Vietnam War veterans about men who went to war. There are no such stories about almost ten thousand women with the U. S. military who went to war in Vietnam.

Cynthia Enloesuggests that women are used as scapegoats to sustain the ‘Holy Trinity of militarism,’ viz., “hierarchy, rivalry, and...masculinity”. She contends that onemust examine women’s militarized experiences for a comprehensive understanding ofmilitarization. She contends that the militarization of women has been critical for the militarizationof governments and of international relations and the militarization of women has been crucial for the militarization of men.

Joshua Goldstein (2003)believes that there has been a “near-total exclusion of women from combat”irrespective of time and culture. He states that the image of a combat soldier is informed by hegemonic masculinity. He also argues that war and gender are mutually constitutive and result in reciprocal causality. Women have fought in wars but are (or are portrayed/perceived as) exceptions to the gender rule that men are warriors.

The Second World War was full of instances where women in the military in many countries of the world were publicly trivialized. For example, the female pilots were dismissed to make room for male pilots towards the end of the Second World War.Many such women were denied veterans’ benefits as well.

There is also a tendency in the military to denigrate those male recruits who do not fare well in basic training. They are compared with either women or homosexuals. On the other hand, female recruits are seen as threats to the sexuality of male warriors and have to experience anarray of exclusionary practices.These female recruits are mocked by their peers and superiors as whores and lesbians. The Tailhook Scandal is one such incident that shows the deep-seated patriarchal character of the military. Moreover, female soldiers are portrayed as an operational resource instead of carriers of 'feminine' values that may 'soften' a predominantly masculine culture.

Women are also the most prominent in working for peace, but unfortunately, they are absent from national and global peace discussions, although there are no necessary links between women and opposition to militarism. Women also have traditionally supported wars their ‘male’ leaders have fought. They have also organized against militarism and led various peace movements.New Profile, an Israeli feminist, an anti-militarist organization formed in 1998, is one such organization whose goal is to ‘civil-ize’ Israeli society, and it seeks conflict resolution without resorting to violence.

Gendered Language and the Making of Military Masculinity

Military masculinities are claimed to create problematic gender norms that value men and devalue women. This is done in great deal through the use of gendered language. One of the most familiar sayings surrounding men and militarism is that ‘military makes a man out of a boy’. Nevertheless, the question here is, what kind of man does it create? Is it a man with stereotypically masculine traits or capable of dominance, aggression, and compassion? Next is the phrase ‘brothers in arms’, ‘band of brothers’ military brotherhood or camaraderie, which refers to the particular form or type of kinship between soldiers. It suggests that women cannot have entry into such ‘bands’ or ‘brotherhoods’.

Likewise, the term ‘male soldier’ is a construction and an actual practice because, historically, soldiers have been men. The instruction ‘leave no man behind’is a gendered notion as it excludes women soldiers.

War does not come naturally to anyone, be it women, men, or children. Military and war have a gender aspect. Militarism, in general, has a social, political, economic, and psychological cost, and military masculinities have a personal cost for both women and men. Gender roles are also seen to be most prominent during wars and conflicts. Militaristic values shape every aspect of politically conflicted and militarized/warzones, and further masculinise the patriarchal hegemonic powers.The United Nations and other human rights organizations have long been concerned with the situation of women in armed conflict. Gender and militarism thus need to be conceptualized as mutually constitutive. 

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8. Enloe, C. (1993). The morning after: Sexual politics at the end of the Cold War. University of California Press.