Men and masculinities in conflict and war PRIO lecture Sept 08

1
Men and masculinities in conflict and warPRIO
lecture Sept 08

• Øystein Gullvåg Holter
• Center for gender research, University of Oslo

2
Introduction

• Introducing men and masculinities research
• Background, gender and work research
• Victimization, gender devaluation as signal of
  violence
• Gender mainstreaming method
• Look for innovation, possibilities regarding
  gender equality
• Lift the peripheral gender agenda
• Improve dialogue between studies of men and
  masculinities, and conflict and peace studies

3
Main points

• Overview men and masculinities studies
• The hegemonic masculinity model
• Critics, developments
• Contributions to conflict studies
• Gendercide and the use of sexist terror in war
• Towards a new feminist agenda

4
Introducing gender studies

• Main recent trends
• Post-trends (poststructuralism, postfeminism,
  etc)
• Do away with the Woman with large W
• Cultural-symbolic theory
• Psychological theory
• Structural and organizational theory

5
Men and masculinities studies

• Perspectives on men as gendered
• Early research findings
• Men as power holders
• 1980s The problem of men
• Better formulations in womens studies, e g R
  Coward Patriarchal precedents, 1983.
• Research on men and masculinities
• 1990s establishing the subject
• 2000s impact of gender equality
• E g world opinion surveys, small gender
  difference
• Time use data, converging gender pattern
  (Gershuny Changing times)
• Mens gender-equal roles more visible
• Beginning de-naturalisation of men
• Men as hindrances / contributors to gender
  equality

6
Reseach development

• 1970s small fragmented beginnings
• role theory J Pleck etc
• 1980s new developments
• men and power, patriarchy theories
• 1990s the research field takes form
• hegemonic masculinity theory
• 2000s integration with gender research
• critiques of hegemonic masculinity theory
• Still a small field

7
Hegemonic masculinity theory

• Different masculinities, changing historically
• Modern masculine gender hierarchy related to
  benefit system (patriarchal dividend)
• Hegemonic masculinity dominates other
  masculinities - complicit, subordinated, protest
  masculinities
• Hegemonic meta-power, a step up from simple
  dominance (Gramsci)
• Sets the norm for other masculinity forms,
  becomes authorizer of masculinity in general
• See R. Connell Masculinities, 1995

8
Hegemonic masculinity model
9
Critics, developments

• (Model presented especially in R Connell
  Masculinities, 1995)
• Masculinity as common emotional pattern
• Shame, humiliation (Evelin Lindner)
  underestimated
• More fear of falling than striving for power
  (Claes Ekenstam)
• Mainly cultural studies
• Men can be more gender-equal, less power-oriented
• Evidence on men in more gender-equal regions
  gives new picture
• Nordic region see e g Helene Aarseth, Ingolfur
  Gislason, Steen Baagøe Nielsen, Johanna Lammi
• Mainly sociological studies
• Other challenges
• Where is femininity?
• What about the patriarchal dividend?

10
Gender hierarchy model (2)
11
Gender hierarchy model (3)
12
Some recent studies

• Harry Ferguson etc A call for global action to
  involve men. SIDA, Stockholm 2004
• Parpart Zalewski (eds) Rethinking the man
  question. Zed, London 2008

13
Pause

• Main points so far
• Men and masculinities studies show a hierarchy
  between men
• Hegemonic masculinity, critique
• Next
• A theory of gendercide
• How to relate the two fields
• Towards a new feminist military agenda

14
Gender terror and gendercide

• Adam Jones, ed Gendercide and genocide.
  Vanderbilt, Nashville 2004
• Includes Theory of gendercide (Holter)
• Also, a critique of the gendercide concept
  (Stuart Stein)

15
A theory of gendercide background

• Paper uses Nazi aggression as main case
• Involved gender in new ways, even if resulting in
  ethnic genocide rather than gendercide
• Uses best-researched case approach to examine
  intermediate context of possible long-term
  increase of gender terror and gendercide
• Gender mechanisms in the build-up to the
  Holocaust
• After WW1, many German men felt humiliated
• This created the Goldhagen syndrome any
  German could contribute to the Holocaust
• Daniel Goldhagen, Hitlers willing executioners,
  1996
• A tendency, not the full picture
• Beaten into submission more violence than
  recognized (cf Evans, Richard J. The Coming of
  the Third Reich. Penguin, London 2004)
• Many, but not everyone participated (cf Kristian
  Ottosens 8-volume study of the concentration
  camps)

16
The German context

• German states ca 1850 - divided, romantic,
  liberal yet with relatively little European
  influence
• Bismarck enforced industrialisation
• Romantic-authoritarian cultural traits, early
  rise of racism, eugenetical thinking
• WW1 settlement gives Germans a legitimate
  grudge
• A major build-up of aggression follows
• Social psychological research
• Biographical study involving H. Himmler, main
  Holocaust architect - Dortmund, E. K. Daniel
  Paul Schreber A Case Study of Private Fate as
  Public Possibility. Research Studies 1978, 46,
  3, Sept, 141-155.
• Argues that Himmler was brought up in an
  authoritarian-sadistic regime prescribed by
  Schreber.
• See further Jessica Benjamin, Alice Miller, etc.

17
Buildup to the Holocaust

• Gender purity came early into the German debate
  as part of race superiority
• See e g Frank Sulloway Freud - Biologist of the
  Mind
• Gender important in the background of the Nazi
  buildup
• See e g Klaus Theweleit Male fantasies
• Early Nazi move neutralize/dissolve womens
  movements
• See e g Richard Grunberger A Social History of
  the Third Reich
• Hitler and Stalin same policy at this point
• Dissolution and neutralization were common
  tendencies in the 1930s (partly as response to
  economic crisis)
• For Norway see e g Gro Hagemanns research

18
Gender and core myths

• Fascism operates through core myths
• Roger Griffin, Fascism
• Concept close to Connells hegemonic masculinity
• Core myths of the Nazi party were heavily
  gendered and racialized
• E g the male Jew raping the Arian daughter
  (favourite propaganda image to popularize the
  idea of foreigners standing on Germany)
• Cf mobbing and victimization research gender
  devaluation as immediate precondition of violence

19
A theory of gendercide (1)

• Four main elements common to genocide
• Devaluation of politics and democracy
• Reactive revaluation through gender, race and
  other social mechanisms
• Buildup of aggression
• Antagonistic conflict and war
• Additional preconditions of ethnic genocide
• Race as main aggression object
• Additional preconditions of gendercide
• Gender as main aggression object or interface

20
A theory of gendercide (2)

• Paula Siber, Nazi feminist A woman has a duty
  intrinsic to her gender of conserving her race
• Femininity as interface to race dutiful means
  of reproduction
• Racism can be a secondary projection, arising
  from an earlier sequence of regressive-political
  developments. p 78
• Elements humiliation and shame, masculine
  hysteria and manly purification, victimization
  and scapegoating, creating a racialized gender.

21
A theory of gendercide (3)

• Nazi warfare was mainly political / racist, not
  gendered
• Left-wingers were the first subjected to
  violence, then ethnical, Jews especially
• German communists were the original inmates of
  the concentration camps
• The Nazis slaughtered perhaps three times more
  bolsheviks than jews
• The Nazi regime included gender in the political
  core, but did not evolve to include systematic
  gender terror
• Target groups were mostly killed without regard
  to gender

22
A theory of gendercide (4)

• After WW2, more systematical gender terror
• Mass rapes and systematic killing of able-bodied
  boys and men in the Balkan wars of the 1990s
• Sexualized violence and torture in Iraq
• Gender a more independent issue, women stronger,
  potential free sex, etc
• Possible general war tendency towards
• (1) more civilian losses
• (2) more gender terror
• (3) greater chance of genocide and gendercide

23
New masculinity studies results

• Masculine organizations
• Example, men and catastrophies
• Social-psychological patterns in four cases
  (including Titanic, large fire, Srebrenica
  massacre)
• Binary tendency splitting men and women
• Authoritarian relationships between men
• Per Folkesson 2005 Män och katastrofer. Doctoral
  dissertation, University of Gothenburg, Social
  work.
• Example, work research
• In times of restructuring / downsizing, the
  organization needs a strong male leader. When
  restructuring comes in, gender equality goes out
  
• Norwegian restructuring study, Omstillinger i
  arbeidslivet, 1996

24
Cross-disciplinary impact of masculinity studies

• Example, recent historical studies
• Males shouting type of command lines, male
  territory conflict, etc
• New studies of 20th century conflict (e.g.
  Beevor Stalingrad, Berlin Montefiore Stalin)
• Leader to be seen as wholly devoted to the cause
• Cf Hitler as pure abstraction, Alfred
  Sohn-Rethel (1941)
• Leaders as workaholics, demand total sacrifice
• Manipulation of democracy - basic ingredient
• Torturers and sadists allowed into leadership
• Male territorial in-fighting often decisive (cf
  Beevor Berlin)
• Masculinity and gender increasingly thematized in
  research
• Common tendency in Nazi/Stalinist studies
• Cf Ann Applebaum, Gulag Stalins policy for
  prisoners changing from faulty citizens to
  vermin to be eradicated
• Stalin, when his son tried to shoot himself he
  cannot even shoot well (Montefiore)

25
The image of the enemy

• Construction of enemy images the Muslim taking
  over for the Communist
• See Rune Ottosen Media strategies and enemy
  images in international conflicts Norwegian
  media in the shadow of Pentagon (in Norwegian,
  1994)
• Young muslim men vs. gender-equal western society
• Thematized in recent masculinity studies (in
  Norway e g Thomas Walle)
• The wests manly warfare in the Middle East and
  its neo-patriarchal answers
• Robert Fisk The great war for civilization, 2006
• Thematizes fathering, observes gender terror, but
  lacks analysis of the patriarchal character of
  the conflict
• Edward Said Culture and imperialism, 1993
• A classic study of Western power views and
  misconceptions
• Gøran Therborn Between sex and power, 2004
• Important work showing the uneven deconstruction
  of patriarchy in the 20th century

26
ConclusionRethinking the man question

• How can armies become peace keepers?
• How can professionalism contribute to better
  conflict solutions?
• Primary goal, reduce violence, civilians
  especially
• Professional military can be less sexist than
  amateurs, mobs historical military studies, e g
  Henrik Syse, Prio
• The conditions and the role of the military must
  be changed, to serve the interests of civilian
  women and men
• Women in the military must be supported by wider
  gender mainstreaming efforts
• Political, economic, cultural etc. changes needed
  to give armies a workable context

27
Towards a new feminist military agenda

• Beyond man as a normative condition of conflict
  studies
• Gender mainstreaming of the military can only be
  achieved by changing the norm regarding men
• Changing the role of women is not enough
• Recognizing the losses and costs among men
• Deconstruction of the taken-for-granted
  able-bodied status of men
• Better research on how violence against men is
  connected to violence against women

28
Redefining conflict

• The historical perspective
• For perhaps 994.000 years, human armies fought
  mainly symbolically, with limited damage
• The last 4000 years, conflicts have become
  increasingly costly
• Let the heroes fight it out, the rest looks on
  - sociological trend
• Modern version (especially) let the underclass
  do the job
• Peter Englund Poltava
• The internal logic of the army is to be obeyed
  with minimal violence and risk
• Even in modern disciplined armies and righteous
  wars - in close combat situations, many soldiers
  avoid violence
• Joanna Bourke An Intimate History of Killing,
  1999
• Conflict needs to be detached from the reflex
  of violence
• Normative role of masculinity to be interrogated

29
Possibilities

• Starting at the solutions end
• Men cannot care for babies
• Give men a good context, they will do it
• Armies cannot find good peaceful solutions
• Other possibilities - ?
• Develop gender mainstreaming methods
• Build on potentials in the local context to
  increase gender equality (eg mens caring
  potential, peace potential)
• Use gender deconstruction and gender-equal
  cooperation as methods

30
Further information

• Recent research
• Gargi Bhattacharyya Dangerous Brown men.
  Exploiting Sex, Violence and Feminism in the 'War
  on Terror. 2008
• Adam Jones Genocide A Complete Introduction,
  2006
• Cultural material
• Film Elem Klimov, Come and see, 1985
• Fiction Jonathan Littel, The Kindly Ones / Les
  Bienveillantes, 2006