Militarized Masculinities in

International Relations
Maya Eichler
Professor of Women’s Studies
Mount Saint Vincent University (Halifax)

The study of war and peace in international relations must take seriously con-
structions of masculinity, as well as the gender inequality they entail. Today, the
ideal soldier is still defined as masculine and the warrior remains “a key symbol
of masculinity.”1 Across the world, men make up the vast majority of armed
forces personnel and state leaders engaged in war. But as feminist international
relations scholars argue, this does not mean that men are innately militaristic,
and, by corollary, that women are naturally peaceful. Instead, the link between
masculinity and the military is constructed and maintained for the purposes of 81
waging war. Militarized masculinity, at its most basic level, refers to the asser-
tion that traits stereotypically associated with masculinity can be acquired and
proven through military service or action, and combat in particular. When state
and military leaders aim to display strength through the use of military force
or hope to recruit male citizens through appeals to their masculine identity,
they are relying on and reproducing militarized masculinity. While men are not
inherently militaristic, militarized masculinity is central to the perpetuation of
violence in international relations.2
This article draws on feminist international relations and critical masculini-
ties scholarship on militaries and war.3 These literatures point to complexities
and contradictions in the relationship between masculinities, militaries, and

Maya Eichler is Canada Research Chair in Social Innovation and Community Engagement and Assistant
Professor in the Department of Political and Canadian Studies and the Department of Women’s Studies at
Mount Saint Vincent University (Halifax). Her research focuses on feminist international relations theory,
gender and the armed forces, the privatization of military security, and post-Soviet politics. Her published
work includes Militarizing Men: Gender, Conscription, and War in Post-Soviet Russia (2012), recent articles
in Critical Security Studies, Citizenship Studies, and International Journal, and an upcoming edited volume
Gender and Private Security in Global Politics (early 2015). She currently serves as an Associate Editor for
the International Feminist Journal of Politics.

Copyright © 2014 by the Brown Journal of World Affairs

Fall/Winter 2014 • volume xxi, issue 1

21.1.indb 81 12/9/14 12:48 PM

 Maya Eichler
war. I review and engage with this scholarship on militarized masculinities
by asking three interrelated questions: How should we conceptualize the rela-
tionship between masculinity and militarism? What outcomes can a focus on
militarized masculinities help explain? Finally, how can militarized masculinity
be transformed or, more fundamentally, how can masculinity be demilitarized?
The first section argues for the need to conceptualize militarized masculinities
in the context of gendered relations of power, but also in ways that are diverse
and changing. The second section shows that militarized masculinities can help
us further understand a range of phenomena from a state’s ability to wage war
to the outsourcing of military and security functions, as well as the restrictions
placed on women’s military service. The third section moves to the political
and social question of how to change militarized masculinities. I suggest that
feminists—and others interested in ending militarized violence—pursue a “dual”
strategy that aims not only to redefine militarized masculinities within public
militaries and other militarized institutions, but to also demilitarize masculini-
ties in society at large.

Conceptualizing Militarized Masculinities

82 The association of women with pacifism and of men with militarism remains
strong despite changes in the gender makeup of militaries during the twentieth
and early twenty-first centuries. At the core of feminist theorizing is the insight
that these perceived gender differences are socially constructed rather than bio-
logically inherent. Feminist international relations scholars urge us to explore
how masculinities and men become militarized rather than take for granted the
link between men and militarism.4 Characteristics associated with militarized
masculinity have historically included toughness, violence, aggression, courage,
control, and domination. But it is important to investigate militarized masculin-
ity as a context-specific and dynamic social construct rather than to presume a
particular content. Militarized masculinity manifests itself in multiple and diverse
forms both within and beyond the military. It is therefore appropriate to speak
of militarized masculinities in the plural form. While militarized masculinities
tend to be defined in hierarchical opposition to women and femininities by
reinforcing unequal gendered relations of power, they must also be understood
in their diversity and variability over time.5
Within both the military institution and state security discourse, milita-
rized masculinities are constructed in relation—and often in hierarchical op-
position—to femininities: for example, as the masculine “just warriors” who

the brown journal of world affairs

21.1.indb 82 12/9/14 12:48 PM

 Militarized Masculinities in International Relations
protect the feminine “beautiful souls.”6 Feminist scholars argue that the gendered
dichotomy of masculine protectors and feminine protected helps legitimize un-
equal gender relations as well as the use of military force.7 While wars are often
justified as being fought to protect women, military violence tends to result in
increased insecurities for women.8 At the same time, combating traits associ-
ated with femininity has in many national contexts been central to the making
of the masculinized warrior. Military training inculcates “exaggerated ideals of
manhood” that often rely on the devaluation of gendered others as well as those
othered by race or sexuality.9
Public militaries have historically been, and to this day remain, an impor-
tant source of unequal gendered power relations. When masculinity is success-
fully militarized—that is, when what it means to be a man in a particular time
and place becomes closely tied to the military—militarism and masculinism
reinforce each other. Militarism means promoting a central role for the military
and its (mostly male) personnel in state and society. Masculinism, as Charlotte
Hooper defines it, means “not questioning the elevation of ways of being and
knowing associated with men and masculinity over those associated with women
and femininity.”10 The “mutually reinforcing dynamic” between militarism and
masculinism operates not only within militaries, but in the wider society that
83
hosts a military.11 Association with militarized masculinity—from which women
are largely excluded—can bring advantages such as societal recognition or
electoral success. Thus, studying militarized masculinities requires attention not
only to men and masculinities, but also to women, femininities, and gendered
relations of power.12
Over the past decade, a growing body of feminist and critical masculinities
work has delved into how militarized masculinities are constructed and con-
tested in diverse geographic locations ranging from the Americas to Europe,
Asia, and Africa.13 While many of these contributions examine the valoriza-
tion of militarized masculinities
Association with militarized masculin-
vis-à-vis femininities across geo-
graphic contexts, they also take ity—from which women are largely ex-
into account the multiplicity of cluded—can bring advantages such as
militarized masculinities resulting
from the intersections of gender societal recogniction or electoral success.
with other categories of difference such as class, rank, race, sexuality, ethnicity,
or disability. For example, not only do female soldiers have a hard time living
up to the norm of masculinized soldiering, but so do racial and sexual minority
men. Attention to these intersections has allowed feminist scholarship to move

Fall/Winter 2014 • volume xxi, issue 1

21.1.indb 83 12/9/14 12:48 PM

 Maya Eichler
from its earlier focus on establishing the centrality of gender to militarism and
war toward a deeper understanding of diverse historic and geographic forms of
militarized masculinities, including hegemonic, subordinate, and marginalized
forms.14
It is important to keep in mind that militarized masculinities are constituted
within and beyond public militaries. As discussed in my book Militarizing Men,
“the politics of militarized masculinity are as much personal and local as they
are public, national, and global.”15 Militarized masculinities are produced at
multiple sites: the individual, e.g., through the beliefs and actions of individual
men and women; institutions, e.g., through the policies of states, public mili-
taries, peacekeeping forces, private military and security companies (PMSCs),
or international organization; as well as at the level of ideology, culture, and
discourse, such as through social norms, film, or media.16 Significantly, militarized
masculinities shape, and are shaped by, military practices, but also by state poli-
cies, security discourses, education programs, media debates, popular culture,
family relations, personal identities, and more.
Militarized masculinities evolve over time, and may become contested,
redefined, or reaffirmed. For example, male conscription—a deeply gendered
policy across national contexts—entrenched “the male citizen soldier” version
84 of militarized masculinity for over 200 years.17 In recent decades, an increasing
number of countries have abolished conscription and moved to all-volunteer
forces, and their militaries now compete with other employers to attract re-
cruits. The notion of citizen soldiers may still have purchase in the context of
all-volunteer forces, but the logic of the market increasingly shapes emerging
forms of militarized masculinity.18 Both personnel shortages and feminist ad-
vocacy for women’s equal access to military jobs has led to a greater reliance
on female soldiers. Militaries today are still male-dominated institutions, but
changing norms of masculinity (and femininity) are weakening the link between
masculinity and the military in countries across the globe. The ways in which
militarized masculinity will evolve depends on a variety of factors, such as
changing gender norms, women’s integration into the armed forces, economic
incentives, and the nature of future military deployments.
In this section, I have argued that militarized masculinity is a dynamic
social construct that is specific to particular times and places. It needs to be un-
derstood in relation to femininities and gendered power relations, and not only
as multiple and multiply constituted, but as evolving. Next, I provide examples
from my research to illustrate the relevance of militarized masculinity to the
study of international relations.

the brown journal of world affairs

21.1.indb 84 12/9/14 12:48 PM

 Militarized Masculinities in International Relations
Studying Militarized Masculinities

The following examples offer a glimpse into the range of issues that can be fruit-
fully analyzed through a focus on militarized masculinity. These examples reflect
my own research interests, which have straddled several geographic locations.
I begin with conscription during the Russian–Chechen wars, then move to
security privatization in the United States, and finally touch upon women and
combat in Canada. In all three examples, we find changing notions of milita-
rized masculinity alongside a reinforcement of gender difference and gendered
relations of power.
The Russian–Chechen wars demonstrate how militarized masculinity and
associated constructions of femininity are fundamental to a state’s ability to
wage war. In post-Soviet Russia, the state held on to the Soviet notion of mili-
tarized masculinity by maintaining a policy of male conscription. This notion of
militarized masculinity defined military service as central to men’s socialization,
citizenship, and patriotic duty. It also relied on the idea of patriotic motherhood
that defined “good” mothers as those willing to sacrifice their sons for the state’s
defense.19 However, militarized masculinity and patriotic motherhood begun to
be challenged during the Soviet war in Afghanistan and were in fully-fledged
85
crisis by the time the first Chechen war took place (1994–1996). Young men and
their families questioned militarized masculinity in the context of the Chechen
war as well as the violent hazing rituals and poor service conditions that con-
scripts had to endure. Furthermore, the introduction of a market economy in
post-Soviet Russia gave rise to new notions of masculinity rooted in economic
success rather than militarized patriotic duty.20 While soldiers’ mothers chal-
lenged the idea of military service as a duty of male citizens and asserted their
right to speak out on behalf of their sons, they did so on the basis of women’s
traditional role as mothers.21 Protests by soldiers’ mothers against conscription
and the war undermined the state’s ability to wage war, as did large-scale draft
evasion and desertion. The Chechen war revealed men who were unwilling to
fight but also soldiers who used excessive violence and veterans who were not
well regarded upon their return from war. Thus, the Chechen war challenged
the image of the heroic warrior that is so central to the legitimacy of war.22
During the second Chechen war (1999–2010), the government introduced a
state patriotic education program aimed at reviving militarized patriotism and
increasing young men’s compliance with the draft. Soldiers’ mothers groups that
encouraged men’s military service received government support, while veterans
were recruited to participate in patriotic education programs for the youth. De-

Fall/Winter 2014 • volume xxi, issue 1

21.1.indb 85 12/9/14 12:48 PM

 Maya Eichler
spite these attempts to revive militarized masculinity from above, draft dodging
remained widespread and official notions of militarized masculinity remained
contested during the second Chechen war.23 A focus on militarized masculin-
ity and its contestations gives us a deeper understanding of the difficulties the
Russian state has faced in mobilizing its population for war.
Other countries such as the United States have over the past two to three
decades relied more heavily on private contractors when going to war.24 The
privatization of security reveals both disruptions and continuities in milita-
rized masculinity. Private security contractors represent a new market model
of militarized masculinity, which further shifts militarized masculinity from
the logic of citizenship to the logic of the market—a shift already underway
with the termination of conscription. Security privatization also relies on and
reinforces a global hierarchy of masculinities. The Western-based, globally op-
erating private security industry depends on the labor of non-Western citizens,
which includes locals in the country of operation and what the industry refers
to as “third country nationals” (TCNs)—mostly men, and some women, from
countries in the Global South, including the Philippines, Bangladesh, Nepal,
El Salvador, Chile, India, Pakistan, and Uganda. The hierarchy of masculinities
between locals/TCNs and Western contractors is evident in the vast differences
86 in pay and working conditions, and in the kind of work performed—the more
dangerous the work, the higher the proportion of local and migrant men among
private security employees.25 Thus, militarized masculinity in the private sec-
tor needs to be understood not only vis-à-vis militarized masculinity in public
militaries, but as fractured along the lines of citizenship and ethnicity, reflect-
ing hegemonic and subordinate masculinities. Furthermore, the privatization
of security exacerbates the gender inequalities that are characteristically found
in public militaries. PMSCs are organizations in which the admittance and
participation of women is noticeably constrained.26 Women make up a minor-
ity of employees, and are least represented in security and risk management,
security services, and field deployments. Private security employees who are
hired to perform security services are mostly recruited from public security
and military forces, particularly from the Army and Special Forces, which are
already heavily male dominated. Furthermore, the nature of privatization and
the lack of regulation make it harder to enforce gender equality guidelines that
exist in the public sphere.27 In the private military and security sector, we see
novel and diverse militarized masculinities at play, as well as an intensification
of gender inequalities compared to public militaries.
One reason for the gendered division of labor in the private security industry

the brown journal of world affairs

21.1.indb 86 12/9/14 12:48 PM

 Militarized Masculinities in International Relations
is women’s underrepresentation in public militaries, especially in the combat
arms. However, a growing number of countries—most recently Australia and
the United States—are lifting the combat ban on women. How does this shift
in women’s historic relationship to war relate to militarized masculinity? Canada
is an instructive example since it opened all military roles to women 25 years
ago, as a result of a human rights tribunal decision and pressure from a strong
women’s movement. As in most other countries, the Canadian Forces had a long
history of excluding women from their combat arms, while selectively incor-
porating them into non-combat roles. Up until 1989, the military maintained
a gender quota policy that determined a minimum male requirement for each
military profession, ranging from 100 percent in the combat arms to 0 percent
in the dental trades.28 This policy defined militarized masculinity as closely tied
to combat, and aimed to preserve the military as a masculine institution. Today,
women make up approximately 15 percent of the military, but are still concen-
trated in medical, dental, clerical, and support occupations.29 Despite women’s
limited integration into the combat arms, their participation in combat came
to the fore of public scrutiny during Canada’s recent military involvement in
Afghanistan. The war led to the first combat deaths of female soldiers in Cana-
dian history. Media coverage of female soldiers and their deaths illustrated that,
87
even long after all barriers to women’s full integration have been lifted, tensions
between equality and difference continue to shape public debate on women in
the military. The media portrayed Canadian female soldiers in Afghanistan as
“equal” warriors but concurrently mentioned gender-specific “feminine” skills
in their soldiering. Such a contradictory construction of militarized femininity
perpetuates masculinity as the norm of soldiering: female soldiers are seen as
equal to, or different from, male soldiers rather than as soldiers in their own
right.30 Thus, while legal gender discrimination has been removed, women’s
military integration is still limited and social constructions of gender difference
continue to shape perceptions of women’s and men’s soldiering in Canada.31
As these three examples show, militarized masculinity offers a lens into
various aspects of militarization and war: the ability of a state to wage war, the
outsourcing of military and security functions, and the integration of women
into combat. They point to the different ways in which gendered relations of
inequality are being reinforced in the military and security spheres despite the
contested and evolving nature of militarized masculinities today. Feminist and
critical masculinities scholarship on militarized masculinities goes well beyond
the examples provided in this piece. It deals with a host of other issues, such as
violence toward civilians during peacekeeping operations, combat unmanning

Fall/Winter 2014 • volume xxi, issue 1

21.1.indb 87 12/9/14 12:48 PM

 Maya Eichler
through the use of technology, and discrimination against gay, lesbian, and trans-
gender service personnel.32 Significantly, employing militarized masculinity as
an analytical lens brings important insights to investigations of war, militarism,
and militarization, as long as we conceptualize militarized masculinity itself as
dynamic, context-specific, and related to unequal gender power.33

R econstructing M ilitarized M asculinities or D e -M ilitarizing

Masculinities?

Considering that a particular notion of masculinity—militarized masculinity

in its various guises—enables and helps justify military violence, it is worth
considering how the link between militarism and masculinity can be undone.
How can militarized masculinities be reconstructed, transformed, or abolished
for the purposes of ending militarism and bringing about peace? There are,
broadly speaking, two approaches within feminist IR scholarship to this question.
The first approach aims to reduce the salience of dichotomous hierarchical
gender norms within militaries and, in the process, to detach soldiering from
violent and aggressive notions of masculinity. Claire Duncanson argues, in her
analysis of British soldiers in Afghanistan, that in certain instances militarized
88 masculinity can indeed be transformed. For example, where “‘peace-builder
masculinity’ [is] being constructed through relations of empathy, equality, and
mutual respect,” such a masculinity can pose a “challenge to gendered dichoto-
mies—to the structure of hierarchical dichotomies, as well as the substantive
content of what counts as masculinity in the military context.”34 Duncanson
and others have argued that such a remaking of militarized masculinity is not
only conceivable but necessary for contemporary military operations that include
elements of peacekeeping or
A true redefinition of masculinity in the peacebuilding to succeed.35
military context would require new ways Other feminist IR scholars
of recruiting, training, and motivating sol- such as Sandra Whitworth
question whether soldiers can
diers that do not rely on the privileging of- ever make suitable peacekeep-
masculinity and denigration of femininity. ers, arguing that peacekeeping
masculinities tend to repro-
duce aggressive and violent notions of militarized masculinity.36 Militaries have
long cultivated and relied on violent masculinities, therefore skepticism about
the military’s potential for transformation is well placed. Even women’s inclusion
into combat roles does not necessarily disrupt the masculinized norm of soldier-

the brown journal of world affairs

21.1.indb 88 12/9/14 12:48 PM

 Militarized Masculinities in International Relations
ing. That being said, it is still important for feminists to contribute to efforts
aiming to transform militaries, particularly as challenging the gender order and
purpose of militaries may open up space to question gendered militarism on
a wider scale. A true redefinition of masculinity in the military context would
require new ways of recruiting, training, and motivating soldiers that do not
rely on the privileging of masculinity and denigration of femininity.
A more radical way to think about transforming militarized masculinity is
to consider ways to not only reconstruct but to demilitarize masculinities. There
is potential for a demilitarization of masculinities, for instance, when militarized
men reject militarism and become active in peace movements. As Heather Stur
describes in her book Beyond Combat, the GI anti-Vietnam war movement in
the United States openly challenged the ideal of the masculinized warrior and,
to a certain extent, even incorporated feminist ideas.37 Miriam Schroer-Hippel,
in her study of peace initiatives in ex-Yugoslavia, argues that any movement
working toward peace must promote multiple acceptable ways to be a man,
reduce gender hierarchies, and demilitarize masculinity.38 In order for such
movements—and other forms of community-based organizing—to challenge
the gender dichotomies and hierarchies that underpin militarism, special effort
must be made to not privilege militarized and masculinized experiences such
89
as those of male veterans.39 The demilitarization of masculinities would need to
go further though. It would require a remaking of masculinities across social,
political, and economic life—including in early childhood rearing, education
programs, labor market policies, election campaigns, and international relations.
The demilitarization of masculinities cannot be achieved if young men rely on
military service for their education or if states and societies celebrate soldiers as
“real” men. Importantly, a demilitarization of masculinities needs to go hand in
hand with a demilitarization of femininities that support militarized masculini-
ties—be they patriotic mothers, loyal military wives, or female soldiers.40 There-
fore, women’s peace activism has historically played a central role in disrupting
militarized gender roles and offering alternatives to violence.41
While the first strategy aiming to redefine militarized masculinities allows
us to re-envision the purpose of militaries, the second strategy aiming to de-
militarize masculinities at large allows us to re-envision the nature of interna-
tional relations. A demilitarization of masculinities poses a direct challenge to
the status quo in which states use militarized masculinity to recruit and prepare
their male citizens for war. The militarized gender roles that enable the waging
of war are constructed and maintained both within militaries and the wider
society. This makes a “dual” strategy directed at constructions of masculinity

Fall/Winter 2014 • volume xxi, issue 1

21.1.indb 89 12/9/14 12:48 PM

 Maya Eichler
within and beyond militaries indispensable. Feminists and others seeking to end
violence need to support efforts to reconstruct militarized masculinities within
militaries and other militarized institutions, while seeking ways to demilitarize
masculinities in society at large. Only with such a dual strategy can we hope
to uproot the deep-seated assumption about the inevitability of masculinized
militarized violence that exists across military and civilian spheres.

Conclusion

Despite common-sense understandings of gendered militarism—of men as

violent and women as peaceful—we need to acknowledge that men and mascu-
linities are militarized, not inherently militaristic. The link between militarism
and men is socially made rather than biologically given. Put simply, militarized
masculinity refers to the idea that real men are soldiers and real soldiers are
men. But while militarism and masculinism reinforce each other, it is important
to conceptualize militarized masculinities in more complex terms. Militarized
masculinities take many forms and are constituted at multiple sites. They need
to be understood as diverse and changing rather than as monolithic and static—
and as context-specific rather than universally the same. Importantly, milita-
90 rized masculinities need to be examined in relation to various constructions of
femininity and in terms of their effects on gendered relations of power. Societal
understandings of men’s soldiering become contested, reframed, and reaffirmed
as states are not able to mobilize their citizens for war, as security services are
outsourced, or as restrictions on women’s military service are lifted. As militarized
masculinities evolve, gender differences and inequalities take new forms. Whether
militaries can be transformed or masculinities demilitarized remains contested
among feminist scholars. Militarization and gender are deeply linked, making
any transformation of the military gender order a potentially significant chal-
lenge to militarism. But for demilitarization to really take root, we need to take
seriously the privileging of militarized masculinities over femininities within not
only militaries and other militarized institutions, but society at large and even
some peace movements. Most importantly, citizens, scholars, and policymak-
ers must pay much closer attention to the constructions of gender that enable,
and help justify, the perpetuation of military violence in international relations.
Challenging gendered assumptions about the inevitability of military conflict is
one necessary step towards rethinking international relations. WA

the brown journal of world affairs

21.1.indb 90 12/9/14 12:48 PM

 Militarized Masculinities in International Relations
Notes
1. David H. J. Morgan, “Theater of War: Combat, the Military, and Masculinities,” in Theorizing
Masculinities, ed. Harry Brod and Michael Kaufman (London: Sage, 1994), 165.
2. J. Ann Tickner, Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1992); Sandra Whitworth, Men, Militarism and UN Peacekeep-
ing: A Gendered Analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004); Cynthia Enloe, Maneuvers: The
International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). This
point is also made by Goldstein who draws on feminist scholarship in his analysis of different gender
constructions in war. See: Joshua S. Goldstein, War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and
Vice Versa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
3. J.B. Elshtain, Women and War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995); Enloe, Maneuvers; J.
Ann Tickner, Gendering World Politics: Issues and Approaches in the Post-Cold War Era (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2001).
4. Enloe, Maneuvers; Whitworth, Men, Militarism and UN Peacekeeping, 153–4.
5. R. W. Connell, Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1987).
6. Elshtain, Women and War; see also: Cynthia Enloe, “When feminists explore masculinities in IR: An
engagement with Maya Eichler,” in Feminism and International Relations: Conversations About the Past,
Present and Future, ed. J. Ann Tickner and Laura Sjoberg (London: Routledge, 2011).
7. Anne Sisson Runyan, “Gender Relations and the Politics of Protection,” Peace Review: A Journal of
Social Justice 2, no. 3 (1990): 28–31; Iris Marion Young, “The Logic of Masculinist Protection: Reflections
on the Current Security State,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 29, no. 1(2003): 1–25.
8. United Nations Secretary-General Study, Women, Peace and Security (New York: United Nations:
2002), chap. 2; Laura Sjoberg and Jessica Peet, “A(nother) Dark Side of the Protection Racket: Targeting
Women in Wars,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 13, no. 2 (2011): 163–82.
91
9. Whitworth, Men, Militarism and UN Peacekeeping, 153–9.
10. Charlotte Hooper, “Masculinist Practices and Gender Politics: The Operation of Multiple Mascu-
linities in International Relations,” in The “Man” Question in International Relations, ed. Marysia Zalewski
and Jane Parpart (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), 31.
11. Claire Duncanson, Forces For Good? Military Masculinities and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan and
Iraq (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 19.
12. It is worth noting that in practice, even as the ideal of militarized masculinity is defined in opposi-
tion to femininity, soldiering also includes aspects associated with femininity or the “unmasculine,” such
as the emphasis on obedience, cleanliness, or caring for fellow soldiers. Jennifer G. Mathers, “Women and
State Military Forces,” Women and Wars, ed. Carol Cohn (Cambridge: Polity, 2013), 127; Aaron Belkin,
Bring Me Men: Military Masculinity and the Benign Façade of American Empire, 1898–2001 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2012). Furthermore in war—the quintessential masculine space—male soldiers
“display…characteristics more conventionally associated with the feminine than with the masculine,” such
as when soldiers cry or suffer emotionally from their own acts of violence. Morgan, “Theater of War,” 177.
13. The following is not an exhaustive list, but illustrates the geographic breadth of existing scholar-
ship on militarized masculinities. Fidelma Ashe, “Gendering War and Peace: Militarized Masculinities
in Northern Ireland,” Men and Masculinities 15, no. 3 (2012): 230–48; Ayşe Gül Altinay, The Myth of
the Military Nation: Militarism, Gender, and Education in Turkey (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004);
Victoria Basham, War, Identity and the Liberal State: Everyday Experiences of the Geopolitical in the Armed
Forces (London: Routledge, 2013); Belkin, Bring Me Men; Daniel Conway, Masculinities, Militarisation
and the End Conscription Campaign: War Resistance in Apartheid South Africa (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2012); Maya Eichler, Militarizing Men: Gender, Conscription, and War in Post-Soviet
Russia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012); Sabine Frühstück, Uneasy Warriors: Gender,
Memory, and Popular Culture in the Japanese Army (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); Orna
Sasson-Levy, “Military, Masculinity, and Citizenship: Tensions and Contradictions in the Experience
of Blue-Collar Soldiers,” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 10 (2003): 319–45; Lesley Gill,

Fall/Winter 2014 • volume xxi, issue 1

21.1.indb 91 12/9/14 12:48 PM

 Maya Eichler
“Creating Citizens, Making Men: The Military and Masculinity in Bolivia,” Cultural Anthropology 12, no.
4 (1997): 527–50; Insook Kwon, “A Feminist Exploration of Military Conscription: The Gendering of the
Connections between Nationalism, Militarism and Citizenship in South Korea,” International Feminist
Journal of Politics 3, no. 1 (April 2000): 26–54; Desiree Lwambo, “‘Before the War, I was a Man’: Men and
Masculinities in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,” Gender and Development 21, no. 1 (2013):
47–66; Seungsook Moon, “Trouble with Conscription, Entertaining Soldiers: Popular Culture and the
Politics of Militarized Masculinity in South Korea,” Men and Masculinities 8, no. 1 (July 2005): 64–92;
Tarja Väyrynen, “Keeping the Trauma of War Open in the Male Body: Resisting the Hegemonic Forms
of Masculinity and National Identity in Visual Arts,” Journal of Gender Studies 22, no. 2 (2013): 137–51.
14. Paying attention to these alternative forms of militarized masculinity is key to rethinking the ideal-
ized version of militarized masculinity, as Parpart and Partridge argue. Please see: Jane Parpart and Kevin
Partridge, “Soldiering On: Pushing Militarized Masculinities into New Territory,” Handbook of Feminist
Theory, ed. Mary Evans et al. (London: Sage, 2014), 550–65.
15. Eichler, Militarizing Men, 13.
16. Here I follow Connell’s argument that masculinities are constituted at multiple sites: Connell,
Gender and Power.
17. Rose Ilene Feinman, Citizenship Rites: Feminist Soldiers and Feminist Antimilitarists (New York: New
York University Press, 2000); Annica Kronsell, Gender, Sex, and the Postnational Defense: Militarism and
Peacekeeping (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), chap. 1; Claire R. Snyder, “The Citizen Soldier
Tradition,” Armed Forces & Society 29, no. 2 (Winter 2003): 185–204; Nira Yuval-Davis, Gender and
Nation (London: Sage Publications, 1997), chap. 5.
18. Ronald R. Krebs, “The Enduring Citizen-Soldier Tradition in the United States,” in The New Citizens
Armies: Israel’s Armed Forces in Comparatives Perspective, ed. Stuart A. Cohen (London: Routledge, 2010).
19. Cynthia Enloe, The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1993), 12.
20. Eichler, Militarizing Men, chap. 3.
92 21. Ibid., chap. 4.
22. Ibid., chap. 5.
23. Ibid; Maya Eichler, “Russia’s Post-Communist Transformation: A Gendered Analysis of the Chechen
Wars,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 8, no. 4 (2006): 486–511; Maya Eichler, “Russian Veterans
of the Chechen Wars: A Feminist Analysis of Militarized Masculinities,” in Feminist International Rela-
tions: Conversations about the Past, Present and Future, ed. J. Ann Tickner and Laura Sjoberg (New York:
Routledge 2011), 123–40.
24. See, for example: “Contractor support of U.S. operations in the USCENTCOM area of respon-
sibility, Iraq, and Afghanistan,” United States Department of Defense (USDoD): Office of the Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense, October 2011.
25. Ibid; Maya Eichler, “Citizenship and the Contracting out of Military Work: From National Con-
scription to Globalized Recruitment,” Citizenship Studies 18, no. 6–7 (January 2014); also see: Isabelle
V. Barker, “(Re)producing American Soldiers in an Age of Empire,” Politics and Gender 5 , no. 2 (2009):
211–35; Amanda Chisholm “The Silenced and Indispensable: Gurkhas in Private Military Security
Companies,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 16, no. 1 (2014): 26–47; Paul Higate, “Martial
Races and Enforcement Masculinities of the Global South: Weaponising Fijian, Chilean, and Salvadoran
Postcoloniality in the Mercenary Sector,” Globalizations 9, no. 1 (2012): 35–52.
26. Maya Eichler, “Gender and the Privatization of Security: Neoliberal Transformation of the Militarized
Gender Order,” Critical Studies on Security 1, no. 3 (2013): 317–18.
27. Ibid., 319–20; also see: Paul Higate, “In the Business of (In)Security?,” in Making Gender, Making
War: Violence, Military and Peacekeeping Practices, ed. Annica Kronsell and Erika Svedberg (New York:
Routledge, 2012), 182–96; Saskia Stachowitsch, “Military Privatization and the Remasculinization of the
State: Making the Link Between the Outsourcing of Military Security and Gendered State Transforma-
tions,” International Relations 27, no. 1 (2013): 74–94.
28. Brown v. Canadian Armed Forces, T.D. 3/89 (Canadian Human Rights Tribunal Decision, Febru-
ary 20, 1989).

the brown journal of world affairs

21.1.indb 92 12/9/14 12:48 PM

 Militarized Masculinities in International Relations
29. Women’s limited integration is particularly evident when it comes to the combat arms. In 2012,
only 2.3 percent of personnel in the regular force combat arms and 4.9 percent in the reserve combat arms
were female. These figures were cited in an internal report I obtained from the Chief of Military Person-
nel & Directorate of Human Rights and Diversity that tracked female representation in the regular and
reserve forces from 2003–2012 (personal email correspondence, March 1, 2013). Female soldiers made
up approximately 8–10 percent of deployed troops, and 8.3 percent of women deployed to Afghanistan
between 2001–2011. Please see: Krystel Chapman, “Sisters in Arms: The Extent of Female Canadian
Forces Members’ Involvement in Combat” (paper presented at the 9th Women in the Military Confer-
ence, Arlington, Virginia, October 2011).
30. Maya Eichler, “Women and Combat in Canada: Continuing Tensions Between ‘Difference’ and
‘Equality,’” Critical Studies on Security 1, no. 2 (2013): 257–9; Krystel Chapman and Maya Eichler,
“Engendering Two Solitudes? Media Representations of Women in Combat in Quebec and the Rest of
Canada,” International Journal no. 4 (2014); Claire Turenne Sjolander and Kathryn Trevenen, “Con-
structions of Nation, Constructions of War: Media Representations of Captain Nichola Goddard,” in
Locating Global Order: American Power and Canadian Security after 9/11, ed. Bruno Charbonneau and
Wayne S. Cox (Vancouver: Univeristy of British Columbia Press, 2010); Karen Davis, “Media, War and
Gender: Considering Canadian Casualties in Afghanistan,” in Security and the Military between Perception
and Reality, ed. Marijan Malešič and Gerhard Kümmel (Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos Verlag, 2011).
31. Also see: Donna Winslow and Jason Dunn, “Women in the Canadian Forces: Between Legal and
Social Integration,” Current Sociology 50, no. 5 (September 1, 2002): 641–67.
32. Whitworth, Men, Militarism and UN Peacekeeping; Higate, “Peacekeepers, Masculinities, and
Sexual Exploitation”; Eric Blanchard, “The Technoscience Question in Feminist International Relations:
Unmanning the US War on Terror,” in Feminism and International Relations: Conversations About the
Past, Present, and Future, ed. J. Ann Tickner and Laura Sjoberg (New York: Routledge, 2011), 146–63;
Sarah Bulmer, “Patriarchal Confusion? Making Sense of Gay and Lesbian Military Identity,” International
Feminist Journal of Politics 15, no. 2 (2013): 137–56.
33. Enloe, “When Feminists Explore Masculinities in IR,” 141. 93
34. Duncanson, Forces for Good?, 144.
35. Ibid; Cynthia Cockburn and Meliha Hubic, “Gender and the Peacekeeping Military: A View from
Bosnian Women’s Organizations,” in The Postwar Moment: Militaries, Masculinities and International
Peacekeeping, ed. Cynthia Cockburn and Dubravka Zarkov (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2000), 103–21.
36. Whitworth, Men, Militarism and UN Peacekeeping.
37. Heather Marie Stur, Beyond Combat: Women and Gender in the Vietnam War Era (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2011).
38. Miriam Schroer-Hippel, “Kriegsveteranen in der Friedensarbeit—militarisierte Männlichkeit als
Friedenspotenzial? [War Veterans in Peace Work: Militarized Masculinity as Potential for Peace?,” in Ge-
schlechterverhältnisse, Frieden und Konflikt: Feministische Denkanstösse für die Friedens- und Konfliktforschung
[Gender Relations, Peace and Conflict: Feminist Food for Thought for Peace and Conflict Studies], ed.
Bettina Engels and Corinna Gayer (Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos, 2011), 98.
39. Ashe, “Gendering War and Peace”; Cynthia Cockburn and Cynthia Enloe, “Militarism, Patriarchy
and Peace Movements,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 14, no. 4 (2013): 550–7; Cynthia Enloe,
“Where Are the Women in Conscientious Objection? Some Feminist Clues,” in Conscientious Objection:
Resisting Militarized Society, ed. Özgür Heval Çinar and Coşkun Üsterci (London: Zed Books, 2009), 81–7.
40. Enloe, Maneuvers.
41. Cynthia Cockburn, From Where We Stand: War, Women’s Activism and Feminist Analysis (London:
Zed Books, 2007).

Fall/Winter 2014 • volume xxi, issue 1

21.1.indb 93 12/9/14 12:48 PM

Copyright of Brown Journal of World Affairs is the property of Brown University and its
content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the
copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email
articles for individual use.