Images of a kinder and gentler war
(2016) Gender Studies Annual Sysmposium 2016- Abstract
- This paper attempts to move beyond the well-established argument that discourses of gender equality and feminist tropes at times have played a role in justifying, legitimizing and extending military aggression on behalf of the West in the Middle East. Instead, this paper explores the ways in which the US army in concrete terms is redoing masculinity in its presentation of itself as a gentler, kinder military force, engaged with women’s rights. The paper seeks to analyze how this presentation of a transformed masculinity is linked to actual killing practices in the US counterinsurgency operations. Taking as starting point the Internet phenomenon of YouTube Military Dads, homecoming videos of US soldiers donned in their combat uniforms who... (More)
- This paper attempts to move beyond the well-established argument that discourses of gender equality and feminist tropes at times have played a role in justifying, legitimizing and extending military aggression on behalf of the West in the Middle East. Instead, this paper explores the ways in which the US army in concrete terms is redoing masculinity in its presentation of itself as a gentler, kinder military force, engaged with women’s rights. The paper seeks to analyze how this presentation of a transformed masculinity is linked to actual killing practices in the US counterinsurgency operations. Taking as starting point the Internet phenomenon of YouTube Military Dads, homecoming videos of US soldiers donned in their combat uniforms who appear in kindergartens, schools, workplaces or gyms to surprise their children, the paper analyses the US Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual in relation to the historically gendered aspects of the military uniform to unpack the role and meaning of representations of a softer military strategy. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/1804425f-f1ff-4686-ae22-7a1e5124672e
- author
- Parsa, Amin LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2016-11-09
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- published
- subject
- conference name
- Gender Studies Annual Sysmposium 2016
- conference location
- Lund, Sweden
- conference dates
- 2016-11-09 - 2016-11-09
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 1804425f-f1ff-4686-ae22-7a1e5124672e
- date added to LUP
- 2019-05-13 15:43:21
- date last changed
- 2019-05-15 14:02:33
@misc{1804425f-f1ff-4686-ae22-7a1e5124672e,
abstract = {{This paper attempts to move beyond the well-established argument that discourses of gender equality and feminist tropes at times have played a role in justifying, legitimizing and extending military aggression on behalf of the West in the Middle East. Instead, this paper explores the ways in which the US army in concrete terms is redoing masculinity in its presentation of itself as a gentler, kinder military force, engaged with women’s rights. The paper seeks to analyze how this presentation of a transformed masculinity is linked to actual killing practices in the US counterinsurgency operations. Taking as starting point the Internet phenomenon of YouTube Military Dads, homecoming videos of US soldiers donned in their combat uniforms who appear in kindergartens, schools, workplaces or gyms to surprise their children, the paper analyses the US Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual in relation to the historically gendered aspects of the military uniform to unpack the role and meaning of representations of a softer military strategy.}},
author = {{Parsa, Amin}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{11}},
title = {{Images of a kinder and gentler war}},
year = {{2016}},
}