Gendering Global Conflict: Toward a Feminist Theory of War

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Columbia University Press, Aug 6, 2013 - Political Science - 480 pages

Laura Sjoberg positions gender and gender subordination as key factors in the making and fighting of global conflict. Through the lens ofgender, she examines the meaning, causes, practices, and experiences of war, building a more inclusive approach to the analysis of violent conflict between states.

Considering war at the international, state, substate, and individual levels, Sjoberg's feminist perspective elevates a number of causal variables in war decision-making. These include structural gender inequality, cycles of gendered violence, state masculine posturing, the often overlooked role of emotion in political interactions, gendered understandings of power, and states' mistaken perception of their own autonomy and unitary nature. Gendering Global Conflict also calls attention to understudied spaces that can be sites of war, such as the workplace, the household, and even the bedroom. Her findings show gender to be a linchpin of even the most tedious and seemingly bland tactical and logistical decisions in violent conflict. Armed with that information, Sjoberg undertakes the task of redefining and reintroducing critical readings of war's political, economic, and humanitarian dimensions, developing the beginnings of a feminist theory of war.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
1 The Genderless Study of War in International Relations
13
2 Gender Lenses Look at Wars
44
3 Anarchy Structure Gender and Wars
68
4 Relations International and Wars
106
5 Gender States and Wars
133
6 People Choices and Wars
157
7 Gendered Strategy
185
8 Gendered Tactics
217
9 Living Gendered Wars
248
A Feminist Theoryies of Wars
279
Notes
301
Index
439
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About the author (2013)

Laura Sjoberg is associate professor of political science, affiliated with the Center for Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on theoretical and empirical approaches to gender and security, including war theorizing and the study of women's violence.

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