Customer Reviews

War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book, though primarily focused on the issue of the warmaking propensities of the genders, is actually a sound overall assessment of gender culture, history and sociology. The author's (Mr. Goldstein) feminist bias is evident but he makes unfiltered evaluations of the sometimes ambiguous facts. His recitation of the statistics involved in this research does get a bit tedious at times, and I'll admit I found the history and cultural studies more interesting than the dry numerical comparisons and graphs (as an engineer, I get enough of that at work.). He cites the few instances of women in combat, especially the Dahomey all-female regiments in the 19th century and the stubborn woman warriors in our own Civil War, several of whom were wounded, had their sex exposed, were drummed out of their unit, and promptly found another unknowing miltary faction who bought the deception all over again. Hollywood, where are you? His insistence on using our DNAS-kin primates as comparators of social-warfare behavior I found to be of limited use, as, ultimately, I believe he did. This stuff could have been significantly curtailed. But his description of human heterosexuality, homosexuality, prostitution, labor substitution, women in the military and temporary women's liberation during war time was most enlightening. He makes a good case that women actualy serve to enable and enforce men's war making proclivities by spurning them as womanly cowards if they retreat on the battlefield and also serve as key elements in the patriotic zeitgeist mobilized by government propaganda. Interestingly, the role of testosterone in war making tendencies seems to be muted at best, despite its universally recognized potential for aggressive behavior. Goldstein also demonstrates that women have been as big an advocate of war as they have been war protestors, so that the mythology of women as natural peacelovers is little more than that. The book also discusses the dichotomy society finds itself in when it talks of desiring peace; it promotes the romance of war almost from the conception of the male child and praises all the warrior virtues as virtually the only acceptable definition of manliness. Goldstein, at the end, mildly endorses sports as an alternative for these military energies, but without much conviction. I, for one, think that war and killing is as essential to the human makeup as the need to love and procreate is, the yin and yang of humanity. The idea of universal peace is as contrary to the natural order of things as black would be without white. That is not a PC view of life but that's what any reader of history must inevitably surmise.

Goldstein's approach should grab male readers especially interested in understanding how gender shapes the war system, for he comes at it from an interdisciplinary angle that attempts to thoroughly cover the popular explanations for gender roles in war and then challenge them with the most up to date evidence. His conclusion after all of this is that gender roles are not inevitable or inherent in human nature, but that human culture, responding to subtle differences between the genders, shapes the war system along gendered lines. A must read for all gender scholars and activists.

I'm a feminist (female - left & progressive) and I have recommended this book several times in various places to the confusion of a lot of fellow feminists. This book has gathered together a lot of information across disciplines that ultimately reveals what polarizing the genders does to our societies. The 'men are men, and women are women' attitude creates a more aggressive world. Why do people recommend socializing girls to reject their more aggressive impulses yet recommend boys embrace & exercise their aggression at the same time? It seems incredibly foolish to do so in the light of the evidence presented in a book like this. We should be teaching our girls to stand up for themselves while teaching our boys to reject their most aggressive impulses. Equity & de-centralization of power is the only stable structure in any human society.
This book is presented from a white male's perspective, and since white male-dominated societies are possibly the most war-prone of all, it is a valuable book. Not for the author's conclusions, which are really not conclusions at all, but for the compilation of evidence that allows each reader to think about the implications of two strictly separated genders created by war, and wars created by two strictly separated genders. I find it unbearably sad that the obviously intelligent author has been socialized to be unable to clearly envision a different society where men can be soft and women can be tough enough to compel peace.

Go hug your sons and tell your daughters to go in the yard throw the football around.

The author attempts to overwhelm the reader with endless details from anthropology, history, sociology, psychology, political theory, etc. and endless analysis of factors to discuss the relation of gender and war--all in the service of the white male patriarchal academic establishment.

Meanwhile, under "matriarchies," he has two entries: "lack of evidence...[and] rhesus monkeys." He conveniently assumes that matriarchies would have been the mirror image of patriarchies, i.e., amazonian matriarchies, which allows him to exclude discussion of actual matriarchies--at least one of which still persists in the United States today--the Iroquois.

The reader never learns that indeed there were such matriarchies as the Iroquois, where the mothers of the tribe were empowered to make the decision about whether the males would conduct war. See Doug George-Kanentioo, Iroquois Culture & Commentary (New Mexico: Clear Light Publishers, 2000).

Nor does the reader learn that there are scholars such as Ifi Amadiume, a Professor at Dartmouth College, who has demonstrated the existence of African matriarchies in many works, especially African Matriarchal Foundations (London: Karnak House, 1987).

Elizabeth Shanklin

I read the book some months ago, and I got the impression that it was quite complete, and fairly assessed. On the other hand, it almost dropped from my hands half a dozen times, because, although the subject was very interesting, most of the time the reading was boring. Therefore, my rate is 5 (content) and 2/3 (pleasure of reading).

Other books on war that I would recommend would be:

- above all, the best, "War on Human Civilization" by Azar Gat;
- also, "War before Civilization. The Myth of the Peaceful Savage", by Lawrence Keeley; "How War Began" by Keith F. Otterbein; and "War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires" by Peter Turchin.