What role does gender play in making war intelligible

Getting the idea of gender brings people closer to getting the idea of how militarism and militarisation bring about a society that is suitable for violence. Gender was used to determine the element of militarisation as men controlled women. The men were associated with the military because of the masculine nature that made them be preferred in wars than women who were thought to be weak. Being conscious of gender also helps people get to know the myths of "war as protection," portrays women just as victims and this is used to make war legal. The gender roles give an understanding that war is seen as a means of offering protection to women. This poses a problem because it demonstrates how many American societies respect the army because their ideas have been termed to be good.

The cultural impacts of war do not seem to prioritize women. The concepts of militarism and militarisation bring about the formation of power relations and positions that form the whole world communities. The national identities fall in line with the cultural impacts of the nation. Militarisation and militarism that results in fighting during wars result in the production of cultural identities that result in nationalism that are gendered. This understanding of gender roles enables us to see that war does not take place in isolation of other political spheres. Whatever damages happen in the battlefield stretch into the homelands. Whatever takes place in the war fields shapes the power movements and in the residential communities away from the battlefields. There may be a need for the civilians to take part in the activities of the war when the division of duties is well stated among the genders.

The various beliefs on wars have influenced how the genders related and how this goes into the presentations in wars that are witnessed in the societies today and the attitudes that result. 115), the war on terror serves as an example to explain this point. The recollections of the stories based on war are narrated in a gender biased manner. There is a use of imagery when the Afghan women who needed to be saved setting up memories of the colonial eras. This demonstrates that the old division of war and the roles of gender were used to communicate that war was essential so that the weak women could get protection from the men ("(PDF) Gender and War n. d, Pg. The role of gender explains that it can influence the dynamics of war, understand how war is not predominantly a male area and also how people can be used to uphold certain gendered stereotypes.

The role of gender in explaining war can be seen in two ways. One is that it shapes the relationships of gender and society while at the same time, a specific gender may create a society that is resistant to war. Given a chance in power, women would seek solutions that are peaceful as it is part of their nature. The gender identities are as a result of the biological functions. The appeals that come with identities of the masculine helps men to counter the reluctance they have of going to war. This also helps in coming up with an army of functional wars. The inner beings of men are not lean to war and so are usually dragged into war and while in the war, they have to be brainwashed and disciplined to adhere to what the war requires of them.

Fear and trauma are a part of men in the course of the wars they engage in but because of the appeals of the masculinity that comes with being a warrior makes them endure the trauma and the counter their fears to reclaim their status of manhood. A wide range of cultural practices that men go through during their rites of passages is what contributes to their masculinities. Gender plays the role of social constructions as well as encoding the relationships of domination. Men dominated over women in times of war. Sexuality symbolizes domination, and this is what explains why men dominated in war and not women. The feminization of women during wars was rampant while men were executed for taking children as salves and that they took part in raping the women.

These rampant raping cases were there and were done by the enemies to feminize a population that was conquered. Feminist and the masculine co-existed simultaneously. The gendering that took place in the counterinsurgency defined who was to be feared and who were to be destroyed (Welland 2015, Pg 290). The demographics in gender explained the reason why young men were the major targets and also that they were the ones involved in military actions (Khalili 2011, Pg. The men were seen as useful resources at war times, and women were seen as people that should major in education. This imbalances in gender led to the demobilization of the armed groups After a woman first detonated an explosive in the northern Iraq city outside a U.

Women were traditionally seen as peaceful people in nature, and the liberals view women as those people that have a significant influence on politics. The violence that women portray do not fall under the definitions of a woman, and so such women are historically termed as "bad women. " This keen interest in women in violence exists because the policies that are sensitive to gender are on the increase today globally. The 21st century has been declared by many as the century of womanhood. It is in this century that rising cases of women taking part in terrorist activities came to be (Sjoberg, Laura, and Caron 2007, Pg. Across the states today and the various cultures that exist in the world, the women are now occupying the positions that were previously thought to be for men.

However, they are still the minorities in administrative positions and also the integration of gender is still uneven, both geographically and culturally (Sjoberg, Laura, and Caron 2007, Pg. However, progress has been made because the women now have taken over the positions as soldiers, military strategists and as political leaders. They are also increasingly entering into the political world and are also among the world war criminals, genocide perpetrators, terrorists, and suicide bombers. The increasing roles of women whether in bad or good roles are encouraging because they create the perception that they are achieving the equality they have been longing for in the world politics even though the public sees this in a bad light. In contemporary violence, the female identity has dominated in violence, and more so, most of them are African American women.

Black women are more likely to be victims of violence in America than any other gender or racial groups. However, today they are the perpetrators of violence. Many African Americans are being arrested for violent crimes while the whites are being arrested for property and burglary crimes (American Sociological Association 2007, Pg. The rate at which black women are taking control of the criminal justice system is faster than any other group of black men and white men. C.  'Innocent Women and Children': Gender, Norms and the Protection of Civilians. Routledge. Richter-Montpetit, M. Empire, desire and violence: A queer, transnational feminist reading of the prisoner ‘abuse' in Abu Ghraib and the question of ‘gender equality. Confronting white supremacy and a militaristic pedagogy in the US settler colonial state.