Gender and Civilian Victimization in War (Routledge Studies in Gender and Security)

by Laura Sjoberg (Author), JessicaPeet (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2019

  $42.64

  This book theorizes intentional civilian victimization in armed conflicts through gender lenses.

  Feminists have argued that the civilian immunity principle in war is constituted by a gendered story of (male) just warriors legitimating wars to protect their female beautiful souls back home - one proves one's manliness in war (individually and collectively) by protecting the feminine nation back home. This illusion of protection, then, both defines the civilian immunity principle, and provides a justification for fighting wars. The book begins with a history of civilian victimization in conflicts, and then lays out this feminist theoretical approach, examining the role that gender plays in the causes and impacts of intentional victimization of civilians in war and conflict, with an eye towards anticipating when belligerents will target civilians, addressing the root causes of civilian victimization, and reducing instances in which belligerents target civilians intentionally. The authors then test the theoretical interpretation two ways: with large-N data analysis, and then through four case studies of civilian victimization in war and conflict. Using a dataset of wars and non-state military conflicts from 1800 to 2010, the authors test hypotheses that gender is a key factor in civilian victimization. They then analyze four cases to see if the story that the regression models tell of why belligerents intentionally victimize civilians in war fits with the actual cases of that civilian victimization. The case studies, using process tracing, ask both how gender-based explanations play into belligerents' decisions to target civilians and what the relationship between desperation and civilian victimization really is.

  This book puts these theoretical and empirical parts together to argue that it is possible to understand belligerents' intentional targeting of civilians through gendered lenses. Desperation does not really explain civilian victimization because military strategists remain convinced that targeting civilians is materially ineffective in producing military gains. Instead of looking for material military gains when they attack civilians, belligerents are looking for symbolic gains, where they desire to render impotent opponents' justificatory narratives for war-making and war-fighting. The symbolic loss that belligerents are looking to inflict on their opponents is their women and children, insomuch as women (their children, households, and way of life) serve as a symbolic proxy for the state or nation that the fighters fight for and fighters' ability to protect them serves as a justification for their fighting and a validation of their masculinity (and therefore self-worth).

  This book will be of much interest to students of critical security, gender studies, war studies and IR in general.