At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War

At War with Women reveals how post-9/11 politics of gender and development have transformed US military power. In the mid-2000s, the US military used development as a weapon as it revived counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military assembled all-female teams to reach households and wage war through development projects in the battle for "hearts and minds." Despite women technically being banned from ground combat units, the all-female teams were drawn into combat nonetheless. Based on ethnographic fieldwork observing military trainings, this book challenges liberal feminist narratives that justified the Afghanistan War in the name of women's rights and celebrated women's integration into combat as a victory for gender equality.

Jennifer Greenburg critically interrogates a new imperial feminism and its central role in securing US hegemony. Women's incorporation into combat through emotional labor has reinforced gender stereotypes, with counterinsurgency framing female soldiers as global ambassadors for women's rights. This book provides an analysis of US imperialism that keeps the present in tension with the past, clarifying where colonial ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality have resurfaced and how they are changing today.

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At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War

At War with Women reveals how post-9/11 politics of gender and development have transformed US military power. In the mid-2000s, the US military used development as a weapon as it revived counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military assembled all-female teams to reach households and wage war through development projects in the battle for "hearts and minds." Despite women technically being banned from ground combat units, the all-female teams were drawn into combat nonetheless. Based on ethnographic fieldwork observing military trainings, this book challenges liberal feminist narratives that justified the Afghanistan War in the name of women's rights and celebrated women's integration into combat as a victory for gender equality.

Jennifer Greenburg critically interrogates a new imperial feminism and its central role in securing US hegemony. Women's incorporation into combat through emotional labor has reinforced gender stereotypes, with counterinsurgency framing female soldiers as global ambassadors for women's rights. This book provides an analysis of US imperialism that keeps the present in tension with the past, clarifying where colonial ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality have resurfaced and how they are changing today.

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At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War

At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War

by Jennifer Greenburg
At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War

At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War

by Jennifer Greenburg

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Overview

At War with Women reveals how post-9/11 politics of gender and development have transformed US military power. In the mid-2000s, the US military used development as a weapon as it revived counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military assembled all-female teams to reach households and wage war through development projects in the battle for "hearts and minds." Despite women technically being banned from ground combat units, the all-female teams were drawn into combat nonetheless. Based on ethnographic fieldwork observing military trainings, this book challenges liberal feminist narratives that justified the Afghanistan War in the name of women's rights and celebrated women's integration into combat as a victory for gender equality.

Jennifer Greenburg critically interrogates a new imperial feminism and its central role in securing US hegemony. Women's incorporation into combat through emotional labor has reinforced gender stereotypes, with counterinsurgency framing female soldiers as global ambassadors for women's rights. This book provides an analysis of US imperialism that keeps the present in tension with the past, clarifying where colonial ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality have resurfaced and how they are changing today.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781501767760
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Publication date: 02/15/2023
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 282
Sales rank: 726,918
File size: 21 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Jennifer Greenburg is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Sheffield. Follow her on X @jennygreenburg.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Doctrinal Turning Points in the New Imperial Wars
2. The "Social Work" of War: Techniques and Struggles to Remake Military Labor
3. Colonial "Lessons Learned": The Contemporary Soldier Becomes the Historical Colonizer
4. Soothing Occupation: Gender and the Strategic Deployment of Emotional Labor
5. A New Imperial Feminism: Color-Blind Racism and the Special Operation of Women's Rights
Conclusion

What People are Saying About This

Deborah Cowen

This is a haunting work about the power of gender in organizing and transforming imperial violence. This book is an essential and enlightening read for anyone concerned with the long afterlives and contemporary refashioning of colonial violence and the politics of counterinsurgency and development.

Catherine Lutz

At War with Women is a brilliant and original ethnographic and theoretical exploration of recent turns in the deployment of women as war labor and their deployment as ideological foils for a US military empire based in white masculinity.

Victoria Basham

Jennifer Greenburg clearly shows not only why we need to pay more attention to women's military labor and the gendering and feminization of counterinsurgency but also how that labor and those gendering practices animate and sustain military power and global order.

David Vine

At War with Women is an important critique of women's increasing involvement in US war fighting. Greenburg exposes a 'new imperial feminism' that helped whitewash the catastrophic 'war on terror' and advance deadly combat while perpetuating sexist stereotypes and racism.

Roberto J. González

Excellent and eclectic, At War with Women weaves together ethnographic, archival, and historical sources to create a vivid picture of what post-9/11 military training looks like during a time of 'winning hearts and minds' and 'stability operations.'

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