Bring Me Men: Military Masculinity and the Benign Facade of American Empire, 1898-2001 (Critical War Studies)

Aaron Belkin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1849041776 ISBN 13: 9781849041775

Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, 2012

The masculinity of those who serve in the American military would seem to be beyond reproach, yet it is full of contradictions. To become a warrior, one must renounce those things in life that are perceived to be unmasculine. Yet at the same time, the military has encouraged and even mandated warriors to do exactly the opposite. With the expansion of America's overseas ambitions after 1898, warriors have been compelled to cultivate aspects of themselves which under any other circumstances would seem unmasculine. The creation of a masculine armed force therefore has required a surprising degree of engagement with the unmasculine while, at the same time, requiring warriors to maintain a strict disavowal of those very same unmasculine things against which they define themselves. In Bring Me Men, Aaron Belkin explores these contradictions in great detail and shows that their invisibility has been central to the process of concealing American empire's nastiest warts. Maintaining the warrior's heroic image has involved displacing negative aspects of military masculinity's contradictions onto demonized outcasts, especially women, gay men and lesbians, and African Americans. Ironically, these scapegoats of military masculinity have not distanced themselves from the armed forces, but have stabilized the benign facade of empire as they sought to gain admittance to the community of warriors. By examining case studies that expose these contradictions-the phenomenon of male-on-male rape at the U.S. Naval Academy, for example, as well as historical and contemporary attitudes toward cleanliness and filth-Belkin utterly upends our understanding of the relationship between warrior masculinity and American empire and the fragile processes sustaining it.

Review:

'In this well-researched, comprehensive manuscript Belkin demonstrates rather convincingly the many contradictions and dualities inherent throughout the US military's history when it comes to "turning men into boys" via military service. ...an important, timely contribution in the academic areas of masculinity, gender studies and political science.' --Choice

'One of the smartest analysts of today's US military, Aaron Belkin here challenges the too-simple presumption that an uncomplicated militarized masculinity dominates American soldiers' lives. Instead, through grittily graphic cases, Belkin reveals a dense web of gender confusions and contradictions that foster a culture of obedience inside the military, while nurturing a dangerously undemocratic set of myths among civilians. This is a timely, significant book.' --Cynthia Enloe, author of Nimo's War, Emma's War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War

'Just as the racial integration of the American military starting in the Korean War and the gender integration beginning with the current all-volunteer force reflected and helped shape American conceptions of race and gender, so does the recent lifting of the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly mirror and shape our conceptions of sexuality, and particularly masculinity, in both the military and more broadly in society. Aaron Belkin has been the most prominent analyst of this latter process. This volume reframes our evolving understanding of sexuality and the falsity of the masculine/feminine dualism, and places this process in the context of historical, cultural, and political change in America.' --David Segal, Director, Center for Research on Military Organization

From the Author:

AARON BELKIN is Associate Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University and Director of the Palm Center at the University of California. He was a MacArthur Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the University of California Berkeley and a pre-doctoral fellow at Stanford, and he has published more than twenty-five books, chapters, and peer-reviewed journal articles. His most recent book is United We Stand? Divide and Conquer Politics and the Logic of International Hostility.