Objectifying female fighters

[ismnotwasm]

From the recent articles on the Kurdish female fighters resisting against ISIS, it is easy to see that mainstream media is adamant in continuing the long tradition that obsessively portrays women involved in armed combat through the lens of objectification, sexual deviation, and as an abnormality. Looking past the outer appearance of army fatigues and gun-slinging women, some with short-cropped hair, others with long braided flower adorned hair, the concept of the motivations and behaviors that drove women to pick up arms— that is, their agency—remains missing.

The role of female participation in nationalist struggles has been frowned upon by western feminists as a continuation of the patriarchal agenda of the men. Anna McClintock views the nation-state as a repository of male hopes, aspirations and privilege unless nationalism has been thoroughly exposed to an analysis of gender power. That is to say that nationalism as a male-dominated and executive arena offers very little space to women in order to better their own status and gain basic equality rights with men.

Thus, women are relegated to the pre-subscribed role of motherhood or “bearers of the collective,” whether that is to reproduce more members of the nation (in the biological sense) or to reproduce the nation’s customs and traditions (in the social sense). Men, however, are characterized as the civil or military reproducers of national policy and decision-making. When women are offered a role, it essentially boils down to conforming to the established gendered division of labor and conventional roles.

Additionally, women are seen as protectors of life and antithetical to violence. Therefore, whenever they engage in violence through armed resistance and combatant roles, they are automatically seen as an anomaly, and as being hostile to peace. The dichotomy: women are predisposed to peace and life and men are naturally inclined to violence, is an essentialist one and too often falls into the trap of rendering women as passive within national struggles. Not enough attention is given to the behavior, motivations, and experiences of the roles women play in armed conflict.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/linah-alsaafin/objectifying-female-fighters

[el_bryanto]

1. That's a really interesting argument

Objectification comes in all sorts of flavors.

Bryant