Gendering War Talk

by Miriam Cooke (Editor), Angela Woollacott (Editor)

In a century torn by violent civil uprisings, civilian bombings, and genocides, war has been an immediate experience for both soldiers and civilians, for both women and men. But has this reality changed our long-held images of the roles women and men play in war, or the emotions we attach to violence, or what we think war can accomplish? This provocative collection addresses such questions in exploring male and female experiences of war--from World War I, to Vietnam, to wars in Latin America and the Middle East--and how this experience has been articulated in literature, film and drama, history, psychology, and philosophy. Together these essays reveal a myth of war that has been upheld throughout history and that depends on the exclusion of "the feminine" in order to survive.

The discussions reconsider various existing gender Do women really tend to be either pacifists or Patriotic Mothers? Are men essentially aggressive or are they threatened by their lack of aggression? Essays explore how cultural conceptions of gender as well as discursive and iconographic representation reshape the experience and meaning of war. The volume shows war as a terrain in which gender is negotiated. As to whether war produces change for women, some contributors contend that the fluidity of war allows for linguistic and social renegotiations; others find no lasting, positive changes. In an interpretive essay Klaus Theweleit suggests that the only good war is the lost war that is embraced as a lost war.

Originally published in 1993.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

360 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 1993

About the author

miriam cooke is Braxton Craven Professor emerita of Arab Cultures at Duke University. She has been a visiting professor in Tunisia, Romania, Indonesia, Qatar and Alliance of Civilizations Institute in Istanbul. She serves on several international advisory boards, including academic journals and institutions.

Her writings have focused on the intersection of gender and war in modern Arabic literature, Arab women writers’ constructions of Islamic feminism and Arab cultural studies with a concentration on the Arabian Gulf and Syria. She has published fifteen books and is currently working on a novel about World War II Palestine.

Three of her books (Women Claim Islam; Women and the War Story and The Anatomy of an Egyptian Intellectual: Yahya Haqqi) were named Choice Outstanding Academic Books. Several books have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French and German.