Body, Sex/Gender, and Integration of Women into Combat Roles

Chapter 5 addresses narratives of women in combat and in combat-support roles regarding their bodily experiences and struggles to integrate in traditionally masculine roles in the military, particularly in the light of objections to women’s integration into combat forces. Accounts of bodily experiences disturb conventional IR and hegemonic masculine war metanarratives, whose tendency is either to abstract or to glorify combat (or both). These otherwise silenced narratives reveal juxtapositions of feelings of competence and vulnerability. The chapter shows how women combatants situate themselves in a masculine environment and demonstrates the ways in which, having crossed the pre-established imaginary boundary between male and female, they form unique meanings for their war experiences. Through the women’s narratives, issues of body and sex/gender are addressed, alongside nuanced interpretations of what it means to be feminine or masculine in the military environment, to carry a weapon, and to be a combatant.

Narratives of Security and Insecurity

Chapter 6 concludes the book with a discussion about the gendered meaning of protection in the military and an exploration of changing gender roles in the military in the context of the evolvement of the new war. It further discusses the false dichotomy between “feminine care” and “masculine protection” in the context of women in the military. In addition, the chapter provides a summary and a comprehensive analysis of veteran women soldiers’ narratives of security and insecurity. It also presents theoretical insights and final reflective remarks on the implications of our findings. The stationing of women in a variety of combat and combat-support roles in conflict zones and in conflicted border areas challenge traditional concepts of security, war, and gender roles. The narratives of women soldiers serving in such roles can thus provide critical insights into the nature of women’s involvement in the act of making war and the possible militarization of women.

Women in Combat

The book focuses on the importance of the study of women combat soldiers and veterans in the fields of Security Studies and International Relations. The chapter addresses this issue by bringing women’s voices and silences to the forefront of research in these domains and by presenting women soldiers as narrators of war and conflict through their alternative and very personal stories. The pivotal motif that runs through the book is the theoretical framework it provides for understanding the process of integration of women soldiers into combat and combat-support roles and the challenges they face. The research seeks to explore narratives of women as violent actors rather than as women struggling for peace. The book prompts scholars to be critical of widely accepted knowledge and binary conceptions in military studies. Chapter 1 outlines the book’s rationale, the research framework, the context of the research, and the contents of the subsequent chapters.

The Politics of Trauma, Gender, and War

Chapter 4 provides a critical feminist outlook on trauma and presents a deconstruction of binary perceptions about traumatic experiences in armed conflicts. Combat trauma and trauma studies emerged from masculine hierarchic theoretical foundations. Current knowledge about trauma concentrates on men as combatants and women as victims. By focusing on the narratives of women combatants, the chapter’s analysis breaks with the traditional ways in which war-associated trauma has been studied. Hegemonic masculinity has influenced the study of trauma—just as it influences and reinforces everyday practices of gendered identities, particularly gendered identities in a military environment. These overlooked aspects of trauma can be understood through the study of women exposed to combat trauma (as perpetrators or victims or both). By the analysis of the traumatic experiences of women combat soldiers, the chapter challenges disciplinary boundaries by emphasizing the need for a critical and feminist perspective in the study of trauma.

Listening to Narratives of Security and Insecurity

Chapter 3 contributes to the analysis of women’s security and insecurity by paying attention to the multiple voices of the combat veteran. Carol Gilligan’s “Listening Guide” is applied as a platform for evaluating the experiences of women soldiers. The chapter thus presents another deconstruction of binary perceptions in research epistemology through disaggregating the voices and silences of women combat veterans. The combatants’ narratives bring to light their gendered and political reflections about their military service and the political and armed conflict that surrounds them. By tuning in and listening to distinct aspects of their narratives regarding their experiences, the analysis shows that most of the ex-combatants indicated that their service had been an important milestone that changed their lives for the better and made them more mature and confident. While some of them were critical of the political leadership, most chose to discuss only personal, gendered, and social experiences.

Violent State Actors in Feminist Research and Critical Studies

The literature concurs that war is the friend of binarisms, leaving little place for complex identities. This concurrence is the starting point of this scholarly investigation. The chapter addresses the important lack in Critical Studies on Security of narrative research on violent state actors. To understand violence, however, scholars must listen to and explore the narratives of those who are committing violence in the context of armed conflicts. Chapter 2, then, presents the authors’ perspectives about engaging with violent state actors in a non-binary manner and lays down the theoretical foundation of the book. The chapter prompts scholars to be critical of widely accepted knowledge and binary conceptions in military studies. The chapter thus seeks ways to produce emancipatory knowledge and to be critical without being exclusionary, thereby expanding the framework of Feminist IR and knowledge about women in combat.