What twists a hand to cruelty? In this world that we live in, is it possible for any man or woman to commit an unforgivable act if pushed to do so? Yes. We are all beings with hateful, terrible capabilities. War is a perfect example of how compassion, empathy and morality die along with our dwindling humanity. Something within us breaks and we lose the ability to rightly judge between good and evil. We are not alone in this sickening transformation. When we turn, we turn alongside our comrades, friends, peers and group members. “A gender-sensitive analysis improves our map of nationalism. It illuminates the process of identity formation, cultural reproduction, and political allegiance that are key to understanding collective identities and their political effects.” (Peterson) This new hive identity we become allows us to do unspeakable crimes, ones that our own sane judgment screams out against.
What happens when we affiliate ourselves with a group that allows us to lose our set of values and beliefs? Obedience overrides our commonsense and we find ourselves blindly following someone who has manipulated us into this state. As seen in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the crowd is fickle and turns from adoration toward Caesar to violent hatred just from one man’s speech. In life, war, and cultures, we see this idea of nationalism, of self-affiliation taken to an extreme and used for mass influence. “As others have argued, nationalist masculinity is a resource that people in Serbia, and other post-socialist contexts, have drawn on in times of social and political crisis in order to architect a sense of continuity, agency and belonging.” (Greenberg ) Yet this “nationalism” is what we identify with and relate ourselves to in every moment of our lives. It decides how we behave, the decisions we make, how we handle situations, and how we view others. Ultimately, it determines how we view ourselves and our own self worth. “In the context of nationalism, these various locations shape the allegiance that various women, or women in concert, will have toward group identity and objectives.” (Peterson)
Often, when told that what you believe in, what you have based your entire life around, is wrong, one gets offended and takes the defensive. Why would anyone ever defend something that they did not even believe in? They would not. In times of war the opposing forces are seen as the “enemy” and “evil” or “wrong” when really both sides are just standing up for what they believe in. With this “in-group” and “out-group” mindset, which is well depicted in the film A Class Divided, nationalism is encouraged. The bonding involved when one identifies themselves with a group is strong and complicated. Men are often so well bonded with their comrades during war atmospheres that they feel a sort of kinship towards them and even love them. Examples of this very such bonding is seen throughout WWI, WWII, Vietnam and even present day Iraq and Afghanistan. These men would do nearly anything for each other and live to die together.
War is not only a battle ground between nations or groups, it is a high-stress structure in which men prove themselves in battle, fight for the other men next to them and take on the role of “protector”. “Militarization of ethnic nationalism often depends on persuading individual men that their own manhood will be fully validated only if they perform as soldiers…” (Enloe) Women in battle often make these roles hard to define for men. How can a man look down on a woman who can do as good a job as he can in battle? “The rise of masculinist nationalism provided a powerful linkage between an emerging post-socialist citizenship and male identification and privilege. While gendered forms of citizen belonging were also a feature of socialism, this new nationalism was grounded in a normative, masculine basis for citizenship.” (Greenberg) This gendering of nationalism has created not only a difficult barrier for women but also it has isolated males as worldwide nations’ patriots.
Masculine and feminine roles often “muddle up” the system. Femininity is often subordinated in cultures upon subjects such that as war. Furthering this subordinate, complicated view of women in war is the aspect of the violence directed purposefully at women. “Women’s bodies are often used as a battleground of men’s wars.” (Peterson) The representation of women in this idea of nationalism is that of country. Women often symbolize the country or culture so directing crimes at them hits the heart of that nationalism. “But women also serve as symbolic markers of the nation and of the group’s cultural identity….The personification of nature-as-female transmutes easily to nation-as-woman, where the Motherland is a woman’s body and as such is ever in danger of violation-by ‘foreign’ males.” (Peterson) This symbolic representation actually furthers women subordination. It in fact could destroy it simply depending on the context one relates to this symbolism. In this case, women are viewed as objects, possessions, held and obtained by men. (Peterson) The tangible constraints women face with unequal opportunities, rape, motherhood and even certain social norms, create an easy target for any symbolic and physical attack on nationalism. “Women’s use in symbolically marking the boundary of the group makes them particularly susceptible to control in strategies to maintain and defend the boundaries.” (Peterson)
Violence directed at nations, through women, is just a shallow indication of the depth and degree of sexist discrimination and victimization placed on females. The definition that women find themselves in, globally, calls to question their value and position in the world. Despite our best efforts, war crimes are still far too common and have resulted in innumerable casualties and refugees. Habituation has numbed us and many victims do not know anything apart from their torn lives.
Bibliography:
Peterson, V. Spike. 1988. ‘An Archeology of Domination: Historicizing Gender and
Class in Early Western State Formation’. Ph.D. Dissertation. International Relations.
The American University.
Enloe, Cynthia, 1939 “Maneuvers; The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives”. University of California Press, Berkley CA.
Greenberg, Jessica; 2006 “’Goodbye Serbian Kennedy’: Zoran Đinđic and the New Democratic Masculinity in Serbia,” East European Politics and Societies 20.
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