Women and War, with a new epilogue

by Jean Bethke Elshtain

Jean Elshtain examines how the myths of Man as "Just Warrior" and Woman as "Beautiful Soul" serve to recreate and secure women's social position as noncombatants and men's identity as warriors. Elshtain demonstrates how these myths are undermined by the reality of female bellicosity and sacrificial male love, as well as the moral imperatives of just wars.

Genres: Philosophy, Feminism, War, Politics, Gender, Nonfiction, History

318 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Jean Bethke Elshtain is an American political philosopher. She is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and is a contributing editor for The New Republic. She is, in addition, newly the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Chair in the Foundations of American Freedom at Georgetown University. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and she has served on the Boards of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the National Humanities Center. She is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and has received nine honorary degrees. In 2002, Elshtain received the Frank J. Goodnow award, the highest award for distinguished service to the profession given by the American Political Science Association.

The focus of Elshtain's work is an exploration of the relationship between politics and ethics. Much of her work is concerned with the parallel development of male and female gender roles as they pertain to public and private social participation. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks she has been one of the more visible academic supporters of U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Jean Bethke Elshtain, scholar of religion and political philosophy, 1941-2013 http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2013...

Reviews

[El]

From this article in The Atlantic:

The fear of being feminized can lead to violence in many situations. For example, in her book Women and War, Jean Bethke Elshtain talks about how this threat of being considered womanly or unmanly is used as a lever during wartime; internalized misogyny and fear of being singled out pushes men to fight—and die—“like men.”

[Kristofer Petersen-Overton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A disjointed book—really several different books. Occasionally enlightening, but more often not. Her earlier Public Man, Private Women is a much more serious project.

[Trice · Rating 5 out of 5]

finished 11/20/2014: excelente - feels like it wanders in places, but overall really great exploration of the topic. Want to immediately reread at least parts (especially chapter 2!), but not sure if I'll have the time.

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restarted again - each time I've started this I've found it to be exceedingly well written and full of important and interesting thoughts, but had to put it down for the regular daily duties and wanted to restart to make sure I wasn't forgetting something interesting. This time I've taken a running start, and loooooved Chapter 2: The Discourse of War & Politics: From the Greeks to Today - feel like I should read it about 5 times to wring out all the info/theory in it, and a fuller understanding of the angle she takes to the material. The other thing that has slowed me down on this is how many authors it brings up which I need to have read for my own sake - I've read excerpts at one point or another, but need a fuller sense. I do love that they're all already on my list though and some I've started delving into already.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rambling discussion on war. Touches on various thinkers of importance, the Spartan tradition, Augustine, Machiavelli, Rousseau, etc.