Week 11 Readings
One of the broadest categories we have not yet looked at in detail this semester is gender and the different ways gender roles manifest themselves through war rhetoric. The three articles presented this week detail some of those rhetorical devices using war photography, media circulation, and dominant ideologies to support their arguments.
Adelman’s “Sold(i)ering Masculinity” critiques America’s masculine identity and power through the use of photographs from The War in Iraq. The article’s primary goal was to demonstrate how war photographs perform a different type of rhetoric because they are permanent representations of a moment in time, yet are still cropped, manipulated, and framed (literally) to send particular messages. Adelman argues that the twin towers themselves were pillars of masculinity within America, and when they fell, so, too, did masculinity. Therefore, much of post-9/11 rhetoric, media, and public sentiment is aimed at regaining that masculinity and power. War itself is an extremely effective vehicle of masculinity, which contributes to people’s support. Adelman chose five photos for her analysis. The most striking photo to me was the final photo in the article of the British troops. What struck me was not the photo itself, but the critique Adelman makes about homosexuality and the physical power photographs have. We’ve discussed in class that the military maintains a kind of neutral space where typical societal structures and ideologies are reworked or do not exist at all. Adelman makes a similar argument about homosexuality where while there are controversial policies at play (don’t ask, don’t tell), “war is the only context in which overt homosociality is acceptable” (p. 277). Finally, Adelman highlights how the physical position of this particular photograph allows the audience to feel safe and at peace, as demonstrated through their smiling faces and “normal” shower routine. Adelman states that the placement of this photo within the book gives a sense of “closure and completion” (p. 278).
Not only do photographs have the power to perpetuate dominant masculine ideologies, but they also help ideologies remain dominant. Berger and Naaman’s “Combat Cuties” compares different media representations of male and female Israeli soldiers after the 2006 Lebanon War. The authors argue that the deep-rooted ambivalence towards women in combat roles is what fuels these skewed media depictions of female soldiers. Images of female soldiers, as they show, move away from their active, professional roles that are dangerous and somewhat savage, by masking them with stereotypical female style and behavior representations. For example, in their comparison of the two magazine covers, the males are “authentically” gazing in the streets and their messages about war and power are clear. On the other hand, the female’s cover makes throwing a grenade seem “sexy” and “‘playful” since she is smiling and staring directly at the camera (p. 276). Not only are the striking differences between media display of feminine and masculine war ideologies present, but there is evidence that female soldiers provide another fetish market for male consumption. Magazines such as Maxim and At both sell the sexuality of women in combat very explicitly. Although I am well aware that “sex sells,” I was shocked to see how the magazines use war as a mechanism to exploit sexual fantasies.
While it is clear that women create a complicated dynamic between war and media, there are other forces within gender that disrupt ideologies. To my surprise, the role of the mother and motherhood are very active in war rhetoric and war media. Using Cindy Sheehan’s anti-war protests as her focal point, Knudson discusses the binary models of motherhood, the mother identity, and “matriotism” alongside a textual analysis of Peace Mom and American Mourning. After Sheehan’s son, Casey, was killed in the Iraq war, she began peacefully protesting against the Bush administration and the war. Sheehan’s protests were not only controversial, but brought to light the power of the mother narrative within war and the media. According to Knudson, the coverage of Sheehan alluded to the binary structures of motherhood embedded in society: the good mother and the bad mother. Sheehan was framed as the bad mother in the media and American Mourning, which then distracted from the real issue at hand, the Iraq war. In essence, Sheehan’s motherhood became hypervisible, while the war remained invisible. Sheehan’s competency as a mother is questioned for a variety of reasons, but they all stem from the dominant ideologies of the “good mother” that society and the media perpetuate. In Sheehan’s book, Peace Mom, she defines the term “matriotism” as the counterpart to patriotism because it acknowledges the wrongdoings of the government and seeks to protect all children, not just your own. We often talk about the “patriarch of society,” but this article brought the “matriarch of society” to the forefront of the conversation, which is something I personally feel needs more attention and discussion.
As Erin mentions, the Berger and Naaman article titled “Combat Cuties” discusses the skewed media depictions of female soldiers. They argue that there is an innate power in photography because of the presumed authenticity inherent in the images, a concept socially ingrained in our society. In this way, photographs are often regarded as “legal reality” which can be shown through their use as “conclusive evidence” in court cases (p.274). This general consensus about the validity of images can be problematic, however, since images also possess the capacity to be altered and manipulated. Berger and Naaman acknowledge this capacity when they refer to studies that report that because men typically control and operate that photographic equipment our news presents a highly male centric view of the world (p.275). This concept reminded me of the issue that Achter addresses in his article “Unruly Bodies” which, as he states, “centers around who controls the circulation of such representations, and how the meaning of such injuries is managed over time” (p. 47). As the government maintains control over the circulation and representation of injured war veterans in the media, men traditionally hold this power when projecting images of female soldiers.
I found the article by Knudson to be thought provoking because I had not previously considered the role that motherhood might play in war discourses. I think that Knudson makes strong points throughout this article and specifically in regards to her analysis about how Sheehan’s motherhood became hyper-visible while the war remained invisible, as Erin also discusses in her post. This resulted from society’s critique of her mothering which distracted the discussion from the urgent topic of the actual war and policies themselves. This analysis reminded me of our class conversation last week in regards to how the welcome home youtube videos act in a similar fashion as they focus on the emotional reunification of the family without allowing for a broader discourse about war policy.
I like your connection of the Knudson reading to the homecoming videos because I think it’s true that the public feels they engage in certain conversations about war, but in reality, they only help the cycle continue. I think the art of media distraction is really interesting because it creates a battle scene within the public sphere where there is a “good” versus “bad” (like the mother argument) or any other binary structure that then avoids the central topic altogether. These battles also never have a solution, which I think discourages people from actually contributing to the conversation from the start.
Typically, it is unheard of to speak out and to demonize a mother in mourning. But the case of Cindy Sheehan shows the power of the dominant ideologies of war and how it outweighs the power of mourning and motherhood. Sheehan dared to speak out and call directly into question the actions of President Bush and the actual foreign policies that we forget are the reasons for war. Sheehan’s status as a good mother was quickly called into question, sexist allegations and questions of the care of her children arose to discredit Sheehan. Erin discusses how we see this phenomena happening in all realm of society, but only happening to women. If someone disagrees with the ideas or actions of a women they call into question their motherhood. It is used as a tool to either prop women up and support them but is also used as a tool to discredit them.
Adelman and Berger & Naaman further discuss how the war itself is gendered and how this is perpetuated through the use of photographs. Erin mentions how the Adelman article examines how photographs can be a “vehicle of masculinity” and reiterate the ideology that associates masculinity and strength with war. I also thought Berger and Naaman’s discussion of emphasizing the sexuality of female soldiers to sell magazines was so interesting. So much of the research I have been doing for my final project female soldiers talk about how they downplay their sexuality in order to not draw attention to themselves and try to conform to become “one of the boys.” The sexy women soldier portrayed in the photographs is a fabricated persona that women in the military try actively to avoid.
I completely agree that a mother in mourning seems like it should be off limits and I was shocked to see how severe the criticisms were about Sheehan. It makes me sad to think that the media would go to such great lengths to distract from a discussion about war and policy. It’s also interesting to consider, as Knudson points out, if a man were to take the place of Sheehan and how the media and public’s response would differ.
I like your point about how the perspective of women in combat is drastically different from what the media portrays it to be. Berger & Naaman do, however, point out how women in combat sometimes use their femininity to move higher in rankings and maintain their status, which I would like to read more about.
Like Erin describes in her post, Adelman’s “Sold(i)ering Masculinity” article discusses the idea of the American masculine identity that she analyzes through photos of 9/11. This article was written at a time where “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” was still in place, whereas Britain had lifted its ban on gay service people nine years before the article was written. I feel as though there is a still a strong undertone of immediately assuming military service people are all heterosexual, which again has to do with the gender/sexuality binary that a lot of people buy into. Adelman discusses a photo of British troops showering together naked and the idea of “the American readers who were inclined to seek out the caption for an explanation of why these men were showering together might have been relieved to find that these soldiers, were in fact, not American.” (Adelman 276). It would make sense that people that bought into that binary would not want these men to be associated with the manly American military connotation. Because all these men are in the military, it is assumed that they are masculine and also heterosexual.
Knudson also discusses a binary, the binary of motherhood and motherhood identity through Cindy Sheehan’s speeches. At first, she was almost dismissed as a grieving mother of a soldier, but she used this to her advantage. There is a binary of “good mother” and “bad mother”. Good mother connotes selfless, tireless and commit everything to her children. Because she was recognized as a good mother, one automatically felt even more of the sacrifice, she had given her life to her children and now her oldest was taken away from her. This reminds me of the videos we discussed from last week’s reading. We can enjoy and understand these videos so much because we recognize the idea of family, and how strong that family bond is. That can be applied to the mother idea, as we feel so much for Sheehan as a good mother who lost her child.
A third binary is discussed in Berger and Naaman’s article, discussing the difference between the portrayal of male and female service people. They discuss the two examples of what the Israeli magazine put out portraying the service people. The picture of the woman is smiling at the camera, a softer, cuter side, while the man is straight faced, not looking into the camera, a harder, more serious look. The gender binary that infiltrates the depiction of soldiers is so apparent.
I think it is smart to see the overarching theme of the binary structures at play here. I would argue we are a nation that likes to divide its public, rather than unite it, and these sub-structures also perpetuate that. “Good” versus “evil” is certainly a reason many people support the wars we participate in. It’s amazing that these structures then trickle down into our mainstream media and are so committed to that narrative–so much so that they demonize a mother fighting for her son’s wrongful death.
I though Adelman’s initial discussion of the importance of pictures and war was really interesting. Adelman’s described photo histories as “windows into the careful process of ‘shaping understanding and constructing a collective memory.’” Adelman also described how pictures are an act of willful remembering. In a time of smart phones and instant pictures, I especially saw the importance of Adelman’s argument. The pictures that Adelman selected show a certain moment, but like Erin said, the images are still cropped/manipulated/framed in a articular way to convey a particular message.
In “Combat Cuties” I found it interesting that no matter the woman’s position in the military, they are always a dual presence. And one presence is always motherhood. Berger articulates this through the ways that women solders are talked about as creating a home-y feeling at an army base, or ‘a homemaker who wears a helmet.’ This reading showed that there is always a duality for women in the military, and the one aspect is always motherhood/mothering principles. I found this especially interesting because when I think of women in the military, I actually more often think of women’s being sexualized, not really them being placed in a mother role.
It was interesting to read more about the binary structures of motherhood in Knudson’s article about Cindy Sheehan’s protesting. I thought it was really interesting that Sheehan was framed as a “bad mother” and that the focus became her motherhood, not the war, as Erin said. Exploring the role of motherhood in war rhetoric was really interesting, and was not something I had ever thought about before. I found it surprising that a mourning mother would be criticized, but throughout the article I saw the ways that Sheehan’s motherhood was used against her.
Photographs, like you mention, are an extremely powerful tool for sending political messages. We think of photographs as objective moments in time, but in reality, they are arguably more manipulative than any other visual. These “snapshots” the articles present are clearly geared towards gendering the military, which I think holds us back from being more successful in our war policy.
Like you mention, I also had never really thought about women in combat being viewed as the “mother,” but I understood the points the author was making. I wonder what the steps are that need to be taken to help equalize the playing field in the military.
As Erin mentioned, the article, “Cindy Sheehan and the Rhetoric of Motherhood: A Textual Analysis” brought forth the concept of the “matriarch of society,” in contrast to the “patriarch of society.” I personally found this article to be incredibly interesting as it provided insight and understanding into the position and identity that few people really want to divulge into— a grieving mother. Prior to reading this article, I always imagined the grieving mother of a soldier as the image of a woman hovering over her sons casket draped with the American flag. I have always associated this grieving mother with a feeling of silence However, Knudson has complicated this image in my mind.
When beginning this article, I immediately thought that perhaps the grieving mother could have strong potential in actively opposing the war. However, I quickly began to understand how this identity of motherhood can quickly weaken a woman’s argument. Knudson states, “The rhetoric surrounding women (and thus, frequently, mothers) is that of emotion, which given the popular culture dichotomy between logic and emotion, canceled out the logic in favor of the emotion.” While emotion can certainly play an effective role in producing convincing rhetoric, within the framework of a mother, I believe emotion actually undermines a woman’s rhetoric. Frequently, women are deemed as too emotional and that emotions can cloud their judgement ultimately ruining their credibility.
This idea of being to emotional is apart of the stereotypical mother or women image. Knudson states that it is this identity that destroyed Sheehan’s credibility. The reading asks what could have possibly caused the argument and position of a grieving mother to lose its “luster and shine?” It is the idea of being a good mother and the stereotypical women that undermines Sheehan’s argument about war. The reading stated that Sheehan began to be seen as a bad mother, thus invalidating her argument, because she was not at home with her other children. This is a frequent stereotype that we see, that the women belongs at home with her children, and if she is not she is being a bad mother. Knudson argues that while Sheehan’s identity as a mother is her true identity, ultimately it was the cause of intense criticism from the public.
I, too, felt that this article was really powerful and brought to light many ideas that I had not previously considered. I think it is a good point that the narrative of the grieving mother is often accompanied by silence, rather than protest as is the case with Sheehan. There certainly is an image associated with a grieving mother, and mothers in general, and when Sheehan defied those stereotypes, it startled the public and the media, sending them into attack mode. And again, to your point, emotion and logic are definitely two separate ends of the spectrum (according to society) and therefore you cannot experience both simultaneously, which then supports the argument that Sheehan was being emotional and irrational.
As Erin has mentioned, Laura Knudson discusses the binary of the “good” and the “bad” mother. I thought the connection between motherhood and activism was interesting and something that I have never considered before. Most people tend to think that war and the military is something of a Boy’s Club, which is undeniable. But by harnessing the relative power of the “mother,” the widespread effects of war are brought to a wider dimension. As Cindy Sheehan said, “Everyone has a mother! Mothers give life, and if the child is lucky, mothers nurture life” (173). I think that this type of argument weaves a broader net around those who are affected by war and draws everyone into the conversation. When critics attacked Sheehan for her perceived failure to live up to the standards of a “good mother,” this kind of argument reveals the binary in which society puts mothers into. Knudson makes the point that no one can be perfect and no mother can achieve such standards. This topic is broached in the novel, “Billy Lynn’s Long Half-Time Walk,” when Billy goes back to his hometown to visit his family for two days. As the family tries to achieve some semblance of normalcy while Billy is there, his mother cries because she worked so hard to achieve perfection and is upset when she obviously can’t reach that.
In “Sold(i)ering Masculinity” by Rebecca A. Adelman, I too was struck by the last photo that Adelman examined. Putting the photo within the context of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell was powerful. Adelman writes that, “American masculinity is, of course, constructed over and against other masculinities, even other white masculinities” (276). The supreme form of American masculinity is never portrayed as anything close to homosexual, so to see a bunch of American military men showering together was a surprising image. In a previous image, the American soldier was shown as denying any and all affection towards a presumably grateful Iraqi man, yet next we are shown eighteen naked men enjoying themselves under a shower. These are contrasting images yet neither are supposed to speak to a homosexual experience.
I agree that the connection between motherhood and activism is an interesting point that Knudson makes. However, it seems as though many of the pressures and expectations society has of mothers prevents mothers from being just any activist. Their activism must still remain inside the boundaries of the “good” mother otherwise they risk serious backlash, which is what Sheehan experienced. I think this is exemplified in the example you give from Billy Lynn, as you mention.
As Erin mentions in her blog post, in Adelman’s Sold(i)ering Masculinity, her analysis of the final photo of the British troops struck to her the most because of the critique of homosexuality that was made by Adelman. I also agree that this photo stood out to me the most because of the context it provides through this notion of masculinity. According to Adelman, she states “in western cultures, war is only context in which overt homosexuality is acceptable and nonsexual male bonding is seen as essential to military success; these small loopholes of permissiveness serve as havens in which images such as this can exist and circulate” (277, Adelman). Like Erin mentions, this picture poses to an audience as soldiers smile during their “normal” shower routine demonstrating this sense of peace to their audience. As Adelman also points out, the interpretation of the shower is this idea of cleansing off whatever they did at war that day. The visual of the photo itself is simple, however, the underlying meanings and contexts of the photo can give off different interpretations towards one’s audience.
In Berger and Naaman’s Combat Cuties, gives a small introduction before showing two visuals of Israel magazines with two men soldiers on a cover of one, and a woman solider on the cover of the other. Before getting into Berger and Naaman’s argument, readers can visually analyze these photos themselves before jumping to Berger and Naaman’s argument. As Erin pointed out in her post, this Israeli cover, is a perfect portrayal of the skewed depiction of a woman soldier. In the cover, the woman is smiling about to toss a grenade. In comparison to the men’s cover, the soldiers portray a sense of fear and seriousness through their facial expressions. Each cover perfectly displays a media’s representation the feminine and masculine war ideologies.
It’s interesting that my observations about the final photo in Adelman’s article was also noticed by many others in our class. I think that photo stands out because the sentiments behind it are so subtle, yet truly do bring out certain emotions in its audience. It brings a sense of joy and peace to its viewers (even me) and that is certainly important if you are trying to gain support of your audience as well. I think this photo in particular is a great demonstration of how powerful photographs really are.
It’s also an interesting contrast to “Combat Cuties” because these magazine covers are more explicit in their intentions and emotions they make the audience feel. For me, looking at these magazine covers instantly made me feel shocked and confused in regards to how different they were in their composition. It goes to show that photographs are as much involved in the political sphere as any other type of media.
I liked Erin’s point that the “matriarch of society” is a concept that needs more attention, particularly because of the gender equality movements occurring in our lives right now. These readings made it clear how easily our perceptions and expectations of gender roles are molded and maintained over time and throughout generations, making them so relentlessly unwavering that they infringe on every aspect of our lives, even seemingly unrelated topics like war. Sheehan’s activism was manifested as a gender issue right from the start simply because it stemmed from her role as a mother, allowing society to hone in on her femininity instead of her arguments and judge her according to their own perception of what constitutes a “good” mother. The photographs analyzed in the other two articles were hardly any different, with each photograph playing into preexisting inequalities, although they are nearly invisible and even regular to the untrained eye. I was particularly interested in Adelman’s notion about the raw power of an image, not just by itself, but also how when its placed in close proximity to another image, the entire story being told has the ability to shift and recreate a meaning. It made me wonder just how influential the recurring publication of the smoking twin towers was on our collective subconscious perception. It was also incredible to see how an image’s story changed when it was placed into even the slightest context, and how just a small blurb at the bottom could alter the emotions or interpretations of that photograph. The photo that Erin mentioned of the men showering reaffirmed that argument for me, with Adelman assuming homophobic Americans would breathe a sigh of relief in realizing the naked men were actually British. That made me think further about how American masculinity is a type of masculinity by itself, perhaps even the most drastic type of masculinity there is. I think it’s vital to recognize how we have been conditioned to either accept or reject an argument or a photograph based on introduction to the context, because it reveals our prejudices and our associations. It is also disconcerting how ingrained in our minds these unequal roles have become, but it does illuminate some of the reasoning behind the tremendous difficulty faced by those attempting to challenge those roles or cause social change.
I agree that it is startling when you realize how deeply-rooted social and gender inequality is, and that even if you are an advocate for equality, you can almost immediately recognize that these photographs and magazine covers help perpetuate the inequalities. It makes me feel like the path to equality is a lot longer than we may think.
I like that you pointed out Adelman’s analysis of raw images and how not only are photographs powerful on their own, but also in groups. Especially when we consider the images of the American soldier and Iraqi man kissing, we can see how these two images build a story more so than they would if we only saw one of the two images.