Women as Weapons of War: Iraq, Sex, and the Media

by Kelly Oliver (Author)

9 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0231141901

ISBN-10: 9780231141901

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Ever since Eve tempted Adam with her apple, women have been regarded as a corrupting and destructive force. The very idea that women can be used as interrogation tools, as evidenced in the infamous Abu Ghraib torture photos, plays on age-old fears of women as sexually threatening weapons, and therefore the literal explosion of women onto the war scene should come as no surprise.

From the female soldiers involved in Abu Ghraib to Palestinian women suicide bombers, women and their bodies have become powerful weapons in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. In Women as Weapons of War, Kelly Oliver reveals how the media and the administration frequently use metaphors of weaponry to describe women and female sexuality and forge a deliberate link between notions of vulnerability and images of violence. Focusing specifically on the U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, Oliver analyzes contemporary discourse surrounding women, sex, and gender and the use of women to justify America's decision to go to war. For example, the administration's call to liberate "women of cover," suggesting a woman's right to bare arms is a sign of freedom and progress.

Oliver also considers what forms of cultural meaning, or lack of meaning, could cause both the guiltlessness demonstrated by female soldiers at Abu Ghraib and the profound commitment to death made by suicide bombers. She examines the pleasure taken in violence and the passion for death exhibited by these women and what kind of contexts created them. In conclusion, Oliver diagnoses our cultural fascination with sex, violence, and death and its relationship with live news coverage and embedded reporting, which naturalizes horrific events and stymies critical reflection. This process, she argues, further compromises the borders between fantasy and reality, fueling a kind of paranoid patriotism that results in extreme forms of violence.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"In this popular book, feminist philosopher Kelly Oliver examines the ethical intersection of war, women, and the media... Oliver analyzes various phenomena related to contemporary wars, such as photographs of torture from Abu Ghraib, and points us toward a witnessing model of ethics in the service of justice, nonviolence, and freedom. The book has stimulated public debate in both academic and non-academic forums.." Jennifer Purvis, Journal of Speculative Philosophy

About the Author

Kelly Oliver is Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of more than fifty articles and fifteen books, including Animal Lessons: How They Teach Us to Be Human; The Colonization of Psychic Space: A Psychoanalytic Theory of Oppression; Family Values: Subjects Between Nature and Culture; and Reading Kristeva: Unraveling the Double-Bind.

Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Columbia University Press (November 2, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780231141901
ISBN-13: 978-0231141901
ASIN: 0231141904
Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1 x 9.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 9 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,608,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #322 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Human Sexuality
- #724 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Women in Politics
- #764 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Movements > Deconstruction

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9 customer reviews

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DruDru

Five Stars

September 14, 2014

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

needed it for school

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Emily

Quality book - both in content and physical quality

August 21, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A fantastic book that should be read for interesting insights into current issues. Read it first in a feminist theory course, but I'm excited to keep it for future reference

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Good Primer

January 15, 2008

Format: Hardcover

I read this book and felt like I've already read it. I had already read _One of the Guys_ edited by Tara McKelvey and Cynthia Enloe's lates _Globalization and Militarism_, so when I read Oliver's book I felt like it didn't say anything new that I have not read in the two other books or in the New York Times. The two other books are superior in their reach and clarity of the topics.

Oliver's book does delve into more theory and that aspect at times makes it interesting. But, overall for teaching purposes the other books are better. If you haven't read the two other books, then by all means read this book first and I think you'll enjoy it.

Audience for Oliver's book is more academic. It would be perfect in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the upper-division level or even graduate level.

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Eduardo Mendieta

Kelly Oliver's book is extremely informative, but also innovative ...

February 20, 2015

Format: Paperback

Kelly Oliver's book is extremely informative, but also innovative and extremely suggestive. War is not only an institution, but it is also part of a gendered psychic economy, and this is what Oliver shows so eloquently. While the book came out already some years ago, I think it is even more relevant today. In fact, it will remain relevant as long as war is implicated in the construction of both masculinity and femininity.

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A Reader

Kelly Oliver's Women as Weapons of War

December 5, 2009

Format: Hardcover

Kelly Oliver's Women as Weapons of War challenges academic philosophy to extend its concerns beyond its usual audience and scope and engage meaningfully with current events. In this sense, Oliver's book accomplishes what most contemporary philosophy books (even those that portend to address issues like war, torture, terror, globalization, and so on) lack: a real confrontation with the shape of the contemporary world. At the same time, the book challenges the general public to reflect meaningfully on current events, their representations in the media, and the social and political forces that undermine our interpretative capacities. Oliver offers a set of critical tools that not only open analyses of America's recent and current war efforts, but also helps us to extend those analyses to our own everyday lives and ethics and politics more generally. Oliver's analyses are highly original and provide a unique vision that ties the individual's concrete, everyday, affective life to the larger functioning of international and global forces and representations. What is surprising is her uncanny ability to do so in a way that skillfully addresses such a large and diverse audience. This book is really for everyone: for scholars, students, journalists, activists, and those who are simply concerned with the role of sex, sexuality, and sexual/sexed violence in politics, war, and the media. In a word, read this book!

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Elaine Miller

Timely and incisive philosophical analysis of the actual and metaphorical ...

February 21, 2015

Format: Paperback

Timely and incisive philosophical analysis of the actual and metaphorical role of women in today's wars; the analysis of the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib is particularly insightful.

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S. Lundeen

Significant Contribution to Literature on Gender, War, and Militarization

December 2, 2009

This book is a unique perspective on women's involvement in violence in the Middle East and in the Iraq War. Kelly Oliver's insights into the connections between sex and violence are apt in our world saturated with real and virtual violence. It is unlike any other book on women and war out there. I recommend it!

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Ruthy McG

Eye Opening

January 25, 2010

Format: Paperback

This book is eye opening. It made me see connections between the treatment of women soldiers in the U.S. military and women suicide bombers in the Middle East. And, the criticisms of the media coverage of the war is very interesting and persuasive.

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Women as Weapons of War: Iraq, Sex, and the Media

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