When Russia pushed into Ukraine in early 2022, photos of former Miss Ukraine Anastasiia Lenna flooded social media. Just as Kurdish women standing up to ISIS were seen by many as inspiring liberators of their people, Ukrainian women fighters have similarly been portrayed as democratic defenders. The relatively rare presence of women in combat, therefore, helps paint a cause as necessary and righteous.
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Today full integration is still held up in many countries by fears that women may femininize war or distract their male counterparts. Even Israeli forces, widely heralded for their gender equality, have been slow to admit women to many positions. However, permission to participate in direct “combat” has been much slower. Only in the first half of the 20th century were women in many countries more readily invited into non-combat national military service. While women have a long history of involvement in global struggles, their inclusion in formalized military units has always been tenuous. Part of this allure relies on how women fighters can appear as bodies out of place. From the military I worked with stateside to Iraqis and Kurds I hung out with in Iraq, I was overloaded with descriptions that highlighted Syrian Kurdish women’s bravery, fearlessness, and pure motives. NATO forces and nongovernmental organizations found them a cause worth endorsing. Kurdish diasporic communities in Europe and North America praised them. International media outlets glorified their work. In the years that followed, YPJ fighters became synonymous with Kurdish sovereignty and women’s rights in northern Syria, or Rojava, as the area is commonly known. soldiers I worked with praised these women as democratic saviors of a backward Middle East. Photos showing beautiful Kurdish women with guns dancing, laughing, and shooting appeared alongside articles detailing horrific battles led by “savage” extremist invaders. The women’s division, the YPJ, attracted specific interest. military forces and Afghan, Iraqi, and Kurdish troops, Kurdish militias fighting ISIS in northern Syria captured international attention. In 2014, while I was studying the relationships between U.S. Stories of ordinary women gathering supplies, cooking meals for fighters, and hiding children tend to invoke feelings of solidarity and sympathy. The heteronormative patriotism of women kissing men in uniform might remind some of the sacrifices we are told our safety requires. A photo of a mother’s grief might resonate with a viewer’s own intimate connections. Women, by contrast, get portrayed as weaker and peaceful, merely in the backdrop of violence.Īs perpetual civilians, suffering women and children can evoke pity, support, and admiration. They’re the only ones capable of defending the motherland from threats (usually posed by other men). Popular culture frequently paints men as “naturally” violent, brave protectors. and beyond, our understandings of war often recycle gendered and racialized ideas of who is violent and why. I’ve also followed how these larger conversations about women and war circulate in popular culture, including in the news and on social media. and European audiences: enthusiasm, intrigue, or at the very least, morbid curiosity.Īs an anthropologist, I’ve interviewed international military personal in the Americas, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, specifically exploring how gender and violence work together. Yet, women with guns, no matter where they’re from, often generate oddly similar reactions from U.S. These women-from such different places, fighting for such different causes-may have little in common. Most recently, brave Ukrainian women-“ not afraid of death” in their fight against Russian invaders-have been heavily featured in the media. Daesh) posing with cars and guns have all graced the front pages of news outlets and been circulated widely on social media. Israeli women soldiers sporting duck faces and fatigues, Zapatista women with balaclavas and colorful dresses, and veiled women from ISIS (a.k.a. In recent decades, global media has bombarded readers with images and stories of women in war. More importantly, though, Farah’s a good woman fighting for a good cause: freedom. Grab your controller, and you get to grow up as Farah Karim-fighting off attackers with a screwdriver as a young girl, struggling through graphic waterboarding, and then wielding an AK-47 against extremist invaders as a leader of the fictional Urzikstan Liberation Force. In 2019, the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare rolled out its first single-mode playable woman character.