Many Faces: Women Confronting War

In reading this article I was shocked to learn that civillian women are more likely to be killed in war than soilders. Even though people typically equate war with men, since they are more likely to serve in the armed forces, women are involved and affected just as much if not more. Women are also more likely than men to be refugrees and victims of sexual violence in war. Another way women are negatively affected by war is through an increase of domestic violence in wartime. This information was a little more surprising to me because it is something I would not have linked together. This increase is thought to be due to an increase in available weapons and because of the soilders or former soldiers due to their frustration and aggression. The media promoting violence for conflict resolution is another possibility for why domestic violence increases during wartime. The loss of family in war affects men and women but because women are particularly the primary care givers they are affected in a gender-specific way. A few other ways women are affected by war is through loss of work, destruction of the environment, and military spending because it affects their ability to provide for their children.

Women can respond to war in different ways. They can join although they tend to occupy feminine roles. They can also work in the defense industry even though these are found to be some of the lowest paying jobs in the labor force. Militaries often use propoganda that links motherhood, nationalism and militarism. By enlisting women it urgers their husbands or boyfriends to enlist. It is not socially acceptable for these men to not enlist because men are supposed to be the tough ones on the relationship. If their women enlist and they do not then they will be seen as weak. Some women respond to war by mourning their losses in public as a protest against war and some women resist war through other types of anti-war organizations.

This article discusses something we've talked about some in class. It talks about the debate about whether women are distinct from men when it comes to their biological nature. Although research shows that men and women do not have an essential nature, conservatives and some feminists use the claim that women are different from men which is why they should not have to fight in war. Since the data indicates that women are not biologically different when it comes to things like aggression that would indicate that they should have to fight in war; however, since they have been cultured to be different from men they are not necessarily programmed for fighting in war.