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War, Language and Gender, What New Can Be Said? Framing the Issues' Anita Taylor & M.J

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War, Language and Gender, What New Can Be Said? Framing the Issues' Anita Taylor & M.J War, Language and Gender, What New Can be Said? Framing the Issues' Anita Taylor & M.J. Hardman "The dominant voice of militarized masculinity and decontextualized rationality speaks so loudly in our culture, it will remain difficult for any other voices to be heard until. that voice is delegitimated. " - - Carol Cohn ("Sex and Death " 717) We take seriously Cohn's argument that the language simultaneously, as: a characteristic of (some) languages; of the ostensibly rational and objective world of national sets of expectations for individuals' behaviors, attitudes defense policy is a "gloss," and an "ideological curtain" and feelings; sets of social structures created and masking important gender-related motives. We will argue recreated through human interactions; complex webs of here that the gloss of which she speaks is, in fact, a relationships; ideology; interactive outcomes of powerful cover story used to mask the role of violence perceptions and self-presentations'*, thus always in (and war as its ultimate expression) In perpetuating a progress and in relations. The scholarly and public worldview. We pursue the objective Cohn articulated, to intellectual worlds have not completed their work of deconstruct the power of the "dominant voice of understanding the complex and pervasive phenomena of militarized masculinity" so that altemative views, gender. We know, however, that most people live their altemative voices can be heard. We seek to expose what lives within the frames of some (several) conceptions of the cover story obscures. gender and Bem's work demonstrates that for many humans gender frames constitute the primary lens through Linking the Concepts of War, Language and Gender: which they see the world. Especially significant, a Identifying the Cover Story particular conception of gender is embedded in the foundations of the huge and powerful political structures Frankly, given the huge amount of attention these of the modem United States and the associated global issues have received, one could wonder what is left to say. economic and political structures'. Thus, it is critical that We intend to refocus on some important work by those we understand gender as these currently dominant who preceded us in discussing the links among war, cultures constitute it and are constituted, not because their language and gender; and to add a new framework that view is more accurate, but because those cultures wield may help bring the available information to wider massive economic and political power, power that spreads attention. Our effort is needed because pattems of gender their violence generating views of gender. U. S. cultural linked war and war language persist, even after literally views contaminate (for good and ill) virtually every thousands of pages of scholarship exposing the links culture they touch. between language and war and gender and violence. Too Languages guide the construction (and few people take such analyses seriously, in part because reconstruction) of all these structures, ideologies, and the matters explored run counter to the overall cultural interactions. Languages provide the core to build the narrative they intend to deconstruct. Thus, continuing the frames of gender that "are" the worlds (the ideologies and work of sorting out the links among war, language and institutions and rules for interactions) within which we gender, while no easy task, seems essential. live our lives and whereby those institutions constrain our We know, and have known for many years, that war lives. Hence, sorting out some of the gender links among rhetoric relies on violent language^. We know that war, language and gender, while no easy task, seems violence links to gender^. Many examinations of the essential. That is what we set out to do with this special gendered language of violence of all kinds, including war, issue. We believe a feminist perspective can offer some have been made''. Language has been shown as a window altemative insights, if only by juxtaposing analyses and into culture and into the thought pattems of a culture'. It raising new questions from the contradictory conclusions. has been examined as a tool of rationalizing and justifying We begin with a look back at Riane Eisler's violence, including war, such as in the extended important feminist analysis, one far too often dismissed. conversation about "just" wars'*. Gender has been studied Eisler examined the development of westem civilization for its role in justifying violence, causing violence, and as and posited the claim that in pre-"historic" times our it manifests violence'. Neolithic forbears organized their cultures around All these works provide remarkable insights. We veneration of a female life force, life-giving and know that violence is a many-headed hydra. Violence nurturant, symbolized in her title by the chalice. These ranges from the massive annihilations of wars among early cultures, she argued, were egalitarian and did not nations to the similar and, perhaps, somewhat less severe reflect hierarchical structures.'" She contrasted these early damages of both physical and psychological dominations cultures, egalitarian and obviously peaceful, with the later done by political structures, churches, and economic replacements, which she believes, the Greeks and the institutions. It includes individuals hurting other Hebrews exemplify. These replacement cultures, individuals, in all kinds of ways. So, too, is gender many organized around a primary male god, were both faceted. The regular Women and Language reader well hierarchical and warlike. These cultures, she posits, understands the arguments that gender must be seen as needed war because they were hierarchical. Because the more than an individual's sex; it must be seen. previous (and preferred) state of human beings was to live Women and Language., Vol. 27, No. 2, Pg. 3 in egalitarian relationships, people did not (do not) submit and the Blade: As long as any dominator culture exists easily to being dominated; hence the elites of the with virtually unrestricted access to resources, how can hierarchies had to develop ideologies to justify the altemative, nondominator cultures resist? Recent world domination, which include the cover story we referred to history seems to answer, they cannot. Resistance to above. They built structures to enact the ideologies and powerful dominator cultures and states seems to require they needed violence, including wars, to enforce the building similarly powerflil dominator cultures for "self- structures. Simply put, dominator pattems create violence; protection." Clark's comparison in this issue of religious humans do not docilely accept being dominated. As the rhetoric of three leaders and our own list of similarities ultimate exemplar of violence, wars inevitably result from between George W. Bush & Osama Bin Laden (note 50) dominator cultures.'' illustrate this well. Such need for resistance may explain, Recent rediscoveries in Peru lend additional support in part, the easy spread of westem cultural influences to the thesis that violence is not essential to the even into cultures where people abhor many of its aspects. construction of civilization'^. Caral, where archeological Pattems of gendered domination replicate easily; they excavations continue, provides evidence that early, export well. They seem to provide defense against sophisticated cultures were not limited to the European unwelcome outside influences. They carry the powerful locales Eisler described. Caral, a large and complex site, cover story that "you, too, can have the freedom to decide reveals an at least 4600 year old cify, estimated to have how you will live your life," with the "you" here seeming had a population of many thousands. It thrived as a center to refer to everyone, when only the ones on top in of commerce and civilization for at least 700 years, dominator relationships have much real freedom. This analysis convinces us that dominator cultures can only be perhaps several hundred years longer (Haas, Creamer and changed, if they can be changed, from within. Ruiz), and its archeological site contains no evidence of fortifications, weapons or other signs of needed defense. The pattem, of course, is not without exceptions. Such ancient records belie much of modem Much resistance has and does exist; Westem hegemony is patriarchal myth. Clearly, human societies can be not complete. Among the Jaqi cultures, for example, a organized to live without war. We are persuaded that the non-gendered view of the sexes remains, in spite of the key to rise of violence can be found in cultural changes incursions to the contrary over 500 years". Jaqi non- from egalitarian pattems to dominator pattems. Analyses gendered culture is not, of course, undamaged; and locate the causes of the change to dominator pattems current schooling practices are further eroding what has variably: economic forces arising from agriculture, such survived. On the other hand, both there and in other as shortages of resources; acquisitiveness; the psycho- places throughout the world, people are attempting to historical arguments of "human nature" as exemplified in maintain and/or recover what has been lost. Such the concept of rational "man"'^. Whatever the many examples can be found among First Nations, north and economic, socio-biological and psychological "causes" of south'**. the shift, important for our analysis is the web'"*: Recognizing that powerful patriarchies can only be introduction of hierarchy
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