Disarming masculinities

Henri MYRTTINEN

C
onventional wisdom has it that men enjoy a ‘special relationship’ with weapons, a view
which seems to be corroborated by empirical evidence. The relationship between
‘masculine’ men and weapons is such a prevailing cliché that one finds it everywhere,
from advertising to left-wing revolutionary posters, fascist imagery to the novels of Hemingway, war
memorials to homoerotic art, from the porn industry to feminist critiques of male militarism. Weapons
systems are designed mostly by men, marketed mostly for men and used mostly by men—and in
many parts of the world, they are the primary source of death for men. Boys are given guns and
swords to play with or they make them for themselves. Adolescent male warriors and middle-aged
male hunters pose for cameras brandishing their weapons. Michael Ignatieff describes entering ‘zones
of toxic testosterone’ in the Bosnian war.1 War memorials depict muscular men clutching their guns or
hurling grenades with flexed, oversized pectoral muscles bulging out of the opened shirts of their
uniforms.
If one considers gender, in this case masculinity, to be socially constructed, and one additionally
wants to further the cause of disarmament, it becomes evident that this bond between men and
weapons and how this is linked with violent notions of masculinity need to be investigated and analysed
further in order to be able to develop sustainable disarmament policies. The importance of analysing
violent masculinity gains even more significance if one accepts the notion of conflicts increasingly being
ones of ‘identity’, in which the gendered ethnic identities that are constructed and mobilized tend to
be highly militarized.2
In this article, I will analyse some of the ways in which enactments of masculinities and the
wielding of weapons go together, the sexualized imagery used in conjunction with weapons, and the
models of masculinity that lie behind these concepts. I will argue that the public display, the threat of
or actual use of weapons is an intrinsic part of violent, militarized models of masculinity. The specific
‘message’ conveyed by the display and use of weapons is dependent on the social and cultural
environment.
I will argue that weapons are part of one notion of masculinity, a militarized view that equates
‘manliness’ with the ‘sanctioned use of aggression, force and violence’.3 Weapons are used as status
symbols but also as tools to achieve economic and social gains, wielding power over unarmed males
and females. This can often be linked to a crisis of masculinity, when there is a ‘fear of loss of male
power and privilege’4 through social transformations, leading to a backlash in which ‘traditional’ gender
roles are reinforced. The construct of the male warrior/protector relies on the suppression of others—

Henri Myrttinen is a researcher with the Institute for Social Transformation in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He is also
currently a post-graduate student at the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa, researching masculinities in violent
nation-building processes.
 four • 2003 WOMEN, MEN, PEACE AND SECURITY

Weapons and their public display seek to including competing concepts of masculinity. Weapons and
underline the ‘manly’ prowess of the bearer, their public display seek to underline the ‘manly’ prowess of
but tragically often also undermine it—men are the bearer, but tragically often also undermine it—men are
not only disproportionately the perpetrators not only disproportionately the perpetrators of violence, but
of violence, but also often its victims. also often its victims.
This contribution is intended to open up discussion. As I consider gender roles to be highly
dependent on the cultural and social environment in which men and women act, I will start by delineating
which socio-cultural environment I shall examine. Unfortunately, by necessity rather than by choice,
the limited scope of this study will lead me to concentrate heavily on ‘western’ (i.e. North American,
European and Australian) perceptions of masculinity, though I will endeavour, where possible, to
broaden this scope.

Toys for the boys

Men’s bond with weapons seems to be forged at an early stage of childhood. Boys mimic the
behaviour of armed male role models, be they knights, soldiers, warriors, police, thieves or cowboys,
role-playing which almost inevitably requires the presence of toy weapons. These might be simple
sticks, cardboard swords or perhaps more advanced weapons such as the replica handguns produced
by the toy industry. Boys and young male adolescents may play with toy soldiers, build small-scale
models of bombers and aircraft carriers or fight digitalized battles in video games. Weapons—almost
always in the hands of males—figure prominently in literature, movies and video games aimed towards
a mainly adolescent male audience.
Young males in pro-gun societies might be given real (if low-powered) weapons such as air rifles
by their parents or they might buy an illegal handgun on the streets—a step which can be seen as a rite
of passage from boyhood to manhood, conjuring up, consciously or not, images of a purported
golden past of hunter/warrior males. In societies enveloped in conflict, be it in a war fought with child
soldiers or in societies such as the United States, Brazil, South Africa or Yemen that are saturated with
guns and violence, this passage often happens at an earlier stage than in more peaceful societies.5
In countries with conscription armies, weapons training in the national armed forces can be seen
as a legally prescribed rite of passage, usually at the age of 18. The armed forces have traditionally
been seen as ‘the school of the nation’, where boys become men and earn the full rights of citizenship.6
Although most armed forces of industrialized nations nowadays admit women into their ranks, combat
training and operations (i.e. the use of weapons systems) tends to remain a male domain. Even in
Israel, with its tradition of almost full female conscription, combat soldiers are referred to as ‘our best
boys’ and female soldiers are mainly relegated to ‘feminine’ duties such as nursing or administrative work.7
Recent studies on the prevalence of small arms in conflict, post-conflict or otherwise violent
societies point towards how small arms are, on the one hand, viewed as male status symbols and, on
the other hand, as tools for gaining economic and social status. The display of his weapon in public
becomes a way in which the man displays his masculinity and defines his role in society.8 The ‘message’
conveyed by the bearer of the weapon depends on the culture in question—as does the type of
weapon preferred for this display of masculinity. The 2002 Small Arms Survey describes how AK-47
Kalashnikovs are part of the ‘Kalashnikov Culture’,9 for example, in Central Asia and Somalia. An
‘automatic rifle that symbolizes rebellion in much of the world and masculine responses to social chaos
elsewhere … in these regions it simply would look odd for a man to be seen carrying anything other
than a Kalashnikov.’10

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Western intervention forces, be they ‘peacekeepers’ or ‘peacemakers’, and the way they are at
times displayed in the western media, can be seen as exhibiting similar patterns of militarized masculinity.
They are portrayed as western protector-warriors in the streets of Kabul or Pristina, a ‘robust’, manly
but benevolent force, sporting designer shades and displaying their weapons while always ready to
assist the poor and helpless women and children they encounter. The subtext of this display of weapons
is both meant to be seen as symbols and tools of western technological and military superiority, visible
warnings to all would-be rogue challengers. Given the delicate nature of peacekeeping operations,
overt displays of militarized masculinity may, however, backfire, alienating the local population.11
The tragic irony of the concept of the armed male as a The tragic irony of the concept of the
defender of the weak and helpless is that often women and armed male as a defender of the weak and
children are far more likely to be killed by the male protector of helpless is that often women and children
the family and his weapon than by an outside intruder.12 The are far more likely to be killed by the male
male himself is no less at risk, as worldwide men are most likely protector of the family and his weapon than
to be killed by other males or the weapon may be used by the by an outside intruder.
male against himself to commit suicide. In some countries, the
‘gender gap’ in this respect is immense: in El Salvador, 94% of firearm-related homicide victims were
male, in a study of 234 random homicides in Honduras—75% of which were firearm-related—98% of
the perpetrators and of the 92% victims were males.13 Males are—by a substantial margin—more
likely to use a weapon to commit suicide than females.14

Weapons as sexual fetishes

The connection between men and weapons often takes on highly sexualized characteristics. The
notion of a sword, a gun or a nuclear missile being a phallic symbol or a penile extension has become
something of a cliché. This has happened to a point where it no longer can be seen as a subversive
critique of male obsession with weapons. Instead, the connection has been co-opted by mass culture—
selling ‘manly’ products such as razors or high-powered cars by means of using weapons in adverts to
‘manly men’—and by the arms industry, which sells ‘manly weapons’ to ‘manly men’. The phallic
image of weapons—and the corresponding notion of violent masculinity—is reinforced by the
entertainment industry through movies and video games.15
Two groundbreaking feminist analyses of male militarism during the Cold War investigated the
sexualized discourse of the nuclear standoff: Helen Caldicott’s Missile Envy16 and Carol Cohn’s ‘Sex
and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals’.17 While Caldicott saw the Cold War arms
race as being fuelled by a kind of penile envy, Cohn set out to investigate the sexualized vocabulary of
the nuclear standoff without falling into the reductionistic trap of simply equating of missiles with
symbolic penises. Cohn describes a language suffused with sexual, mostly phallic, imagery, clouding
the lethal nature of the weapons in question. The imagery also creates a sexualized intimacy between
the developers and handlers of the weapons systems and the weapon, one that finds its physical
manifestation, for example, in a quasi-ritualistic patting of the bomb, missile or bomber. A further
interesting metaphor Cohn discovers is that of creating and giving birth to a new world through the
destructive power of the nuclear weapon. Here, however, the sexualized metaphors become slightly
confused: a phallic missile ‘delivers’ the ‘babies’ (the warheads), and it is these babies that give birth to
the new world.
Guns as violent phallic symbols are used, for example, in chants of the US Marine Corps (‘This is
my rifle [holding up gun]/ this is my gun [pointing at penis]/ one’s for killing/ the other’s for fun’) or in

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pro-gun bumper stickers available in South Africa (‘Gun Free South Africa—Suck my Glock’). Condoms
issued to soldiers in the Second World War and in later conflicts were often used to cover the muzzle
of their rifle to protect them from dust and sand.18
The phallus is, however, not the only sexualized metaphor employed when seeking to visualize
the relationship between men and weapons. Soldiers are also taught to feminize the tools of war: to
view their guns as ‘brides’, as female beings who they are expected to care for. Tanks, naval vessels and
aircraft are given female names and adorned with paintings of pin-up girls. The weapon or weapons
system thus becomes a female lover, bride or mother of the male soldier. A striking description of the
latter is Randall Jarrell’s Second World War poem ‘The Death of a Ball-Turret Gunner’,19 in which the
dead gunner is washed out of the ‘womb’ of the bomber like a dead foetus.
As with the male phallic metaphors, the use of female metaphors is highly sexualized but it is also
somewhat ambiguous—the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima was ‘male’ (Little Boy) and ‘delivered’
by a ‘female’ bomber, the Enola Gay. In a more recent example, however, the new American MOAB
(Massive Ordnance Air Burst) bomb unveiled early in 2003 was nicknamed ‘The Mother of All Bombs’.
The French nuclear test sites in the South Pacific were all given female names.20 Thus, weapons and
weapon systems can be seen as reinforcing traditional notions of gender roles on a symbolic level: the
male soldiers takes care of his gun-bride, the tank- or bomber-mother nurtures and protects the
young male soldiers. On the other hand, this can also be seen as a symbolic concession to the fact that
traditional gender roles are transformed through combat. Women do take part in combat or combat-
related activities, including killing, and not only on a symbolic level as ‘female’ guns and warships.
Furthermore, as the example of the French nuclear testing sites shows, the metaphors can unintentionally
symbolize violence against women in conflict. As it tends to be men who are using the weapons
systems, the sexual metaphors also underline male control over their own bodies (male sexual analogies)
and those of women (female sexual analogies).
The violent strand of masculinity, however, not only sees weapons as phallic extensions, as female
sex objects or fetishes of male prowess, but also sees the body itself as a weapon. This may, for
example, happen in the context of violent spectator sports,21 sexualized violence or through suicide
attacks. All three are male-dominated domains—females participating in violent sports are viewed as
anomalies, males top statistics concerning perpetrators of rape, and the recent appearance of female
suicide bombers has taken security forces and the public by surprise. In all three cases the use of the
body as a weapon seeks to strengthen the social position of the male, by gaining ‘respect’ in the ring or
on the playing field, gaining ‘martyr’ status or sexual satisfaction and—above all—power by directly
and violently subjugating others.

War as a symbolic sexual act

If one accepts the symbolic sexual quality of weapons, then the use of weapons consequently
becomes a symbolic sexual act. Joanne Bourke’s An Intimate History of Killing studies in great depth
the importance given in past military training in the United States and the United Kingdom to the use
of bayonets, which was seen as an integral part of building the fighting spirit of the all-male troops.22
The use of the bayonet was described in explicitly sexual terms and those flinching from its use are
described as ‘effete’ or ‘feminine’. Given the near-pathological fear of the military establishment of
homosexuality, an interesting aspect of these metaphors is that the act of penetration, a symbolic rape,
is expected to take place in an all-male environment.
Caldicott’s ‘missile envy’ analysis of the Cold War needs to be revisited and revised when looking
at the arms races of today. On a global scale, the military power of the United States is no longer

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contested as during the Cold War. Today, no aspiring challenger can or will, at least in the medium
term, seek to build a similar arsenal of weapons. Seen from a sexualized point of view, the possession
of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) may be seen as the ‘great equalizer’ or ‘great compensator’, a
way of getting back at the global, omnipotent ‘alpha-male’—but only to a limited extent, as no state,
much less a non-state actor, is able to match the American nuclear arsenal. The missile race between
India and Pakistan is perhaps the one that is closest to the Cold War ‘missile envy’ scenario.
Most conflicts today are ‘low-intensity’ and asymmetric, but may be equally sexualized. In ‘lower
intensity’ conflicts the dynamics are somewhat different, as small arms, the weapon of choice, are
relatively readily available. In these conflicts, other dynamics (such as the connections one has to a—
often ‘hyper-masculine’23—warlord, may be more important in defining the pecking order than the
possession of a weapon. Terrorism can also be seen through the lens of sexualized metaphors. The
11 September 2001 attacks themselves have been described—voluntarily or involuntarily—in explicitly
or implicitly sexualized terms. For example, the Twin Towers have been described as symbolizing the
dual phalli of American military and economic power, the attacks as being ‘re-masculizing’ acts following
the ‘emasculating’ experience of having American troops—amongst them female soldiers—guarding
the holiest sites of Islam.24 On the other hand, the attackers were displayed in the American public and
media as being ‘cowardly’ and ‘unmanly’ and the subsequent war in Afghanistan as ‘re-masculizing’
for the United States, whose dominance had been symbolically challenged.25
With respect to sexualized violence, against both women and men, in which weapons play a
role, the weapon loses its symbolic phallic quality and is either used to force sexual acts upon the victim
and/or is used as a surrogate phallus for penetrating orifices. Well-documented, horrific cases of this
can, for example, be found in the reports by Human Rights Watch on sexualized violence in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone.26

Weapons and violent masculinity

As we have seen so far, weapons are seen as sex symbols, as fetishes and tools for reinforcing
one’s masculinity. This view is bolstered by the mass media, which uses an increasing amount of its
(pre-) conflict coverage to present the ‘sexy’ weapons systems that will be employed in the conflict. For
example, CNN and Fox News devoted a sizable amount of their airtime to presenting the American
arsenal in the run-up to the Iraq War.27
Weapons are the embodiment of violent, often militarized Weapons are the embodiment of
models of masculinity, which, in turn, have broader socio-political violent, often militarized models of
ramifications. In these notions of masculinity, the weapon or masculinity, which, in turn, have broader
weapon system is often seen as ‘a fetish object of cult heroism’, as socio-political ramifications.
Robert Dean describes the way in which—white, upper class,
male—fighter pilots of the First and Second World Wars or torpedo boat captains were deified in the
United States.28 Joanne Bourke describes similar ‘warrior myths’ surrounding American, Australian,
British and New Zealand pilots and snipers in both World Wars as well as the Viet Nam War.29 In these
particular cases, the notions of warrior masculinity in question can be traced to imperial British concepts
of masculinity,30 which stress white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian, male superiority and acted as the ideological
backdrop for the expanding British Empire. These concepts, Dean argues, were partially taken over by
the American political elite in the early to mid-twentieth century.
The resurgence of militarized ‘hard body’ masculinity during the Reagan-era in reaction both to
a ‘crisis of masculinity’ and foreign policy setbacks as well as its reflection in popular culture is examined
by Lynda E. Boose and Susan Jeffords.31 In the view of these authors, the ‘emasculating’ experience of

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Viet Nam is compensated for in the Reagan/Bush years by a more aggressive foreign policy, mirrored
by a cultural shift away from a perceived ‘softer’ masculinity of the late 1960s and 1970s (linked with
a ‘defeatist’—read ‘unmasculine’—home front during the Viet Nam War) towards an aggressive
masculinity. An indicator of this shift is seen in the male role models conveyed by action movies—the
previous James Bond-style action hero with a small gun and relatively refined manners is replaced by
John Rambo-style hyper-masculine heroes with ludicrously oversized weapons and muscles.
Notions of ‘warrior’ masculinity are visible in western mass culture. The urban warriors of today,
such as the young, dynamic professionals of either sex, can get into the right mindset for their stock
exchange battles by wearing military-style designer clothes and driving in luxury versions of military
vehicles such as Land Rovers or Humvees. Similarly, the actual
The urban warriors of today, such as
urban warriors of the world’s low-intensity conflicts often take
the young, dynamic professionals of either
their fashion cues from western mass culture. Correspondents
sex, can get into the right mindset for their
reporting on conflicts and the staff of relief organizations, even
stock exchange battles by wearing military-
when they are far removed from the actual fighting, are looking
style designer clothes and driving in luxury
increasingly like combatants, wearing toned-down military style
versions of military vehicles such as Land
clothing, flak vests, helmets and driving oversized all-terrain
Rovers or Humvees.
vehicles. The militarized imagery and the use of military accessories
can be seen as manifestations of a militarized concept of masculinity, an aggressive hyper-individualism
that is also dominant in the current neo-liberal discourse: a hyper-individualism, which ‘addresses
challenges’ in the civilian world as ‘aggressively’ and ‘robustly’, to use the current peacekeeping jargon,
as western intervention forces in Afghanistan, Iraq or Sierra Leone.32

Violent masculinity

Militarized, violent enactments of masculinity can often be seen as a flight back to an extreme,
imagined version of what men are ‘traditionally’ like, a reaction to insecurity posed by perceived
threats to one’s masculinity. These neo-traditionalist responses are visible in many societies, and can
be triggered by a range of perceived threats—fear of ‘western feminism’, or any other expressions of
female independence, the disrupting of traditional social and economic patterns due to increased
globalization or the opening of social spaces for non-traditional gender roles. The processes of constructing
white militarized men through a culture of open disdain of blacks, civilians, women as well as the
violent suppression of homosexuals and dissenters in the apartheid-era South African Defence Force—
a reaction to the perceived internal and external threats to the apartheid regime—is a case in point,
though an extreme one. Violent masculinity also involves the suppression of alternative, competing
masculinities not only in others but in oneself as well. In South Africa, the armed forces went so
far as to attempt to ‘cure’ suspected homosexual conscripts through hormonal therapies and
electric shock.33
Conflict situations tend to reinforce narrow views of masculinity—the men with weapons have
the power, men are often expected by tradition to be either warriors and/or protectors, and failure to
live up to these expectations leads to violence against those perceived to be in an even weaker position,
e.g. in the domestic environment. The ‘masculinity’ of civilians is contested by male combatants, for
example through the rape of the man, or else his partner, children or relatives who the unarmed male
is unable to protect.34
In post-conflict situations, men often reoccupy what new social spaces women were able to
create in the conflict as part of a neo-traditionalist return to a ‘golden past’ when ‘men were men and
knew what that meant’. Research suggests that in the post-conflict period women are relegated to

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narrowly defined roles in society. Men who are labelled as being ‘deviant’ are also subjected to extreme
forms of discipline or exclusion. Homophobia is not uncommon and the role of non-combatant males
is belittled. The dominant war discourse, i.e. the way the war is subsequently portrayed in official
history books, war monuments and the mainstream media, thus becomes one of fighting, unraped
heterosexual males, heroic even in defeat. If there is no comprehensive weapons collection programme,
it may well happen that wartime small arms are used in enforcing this neo-traditionalist rollback.35

Boys will be boys?

One should be aware of the pitfall that by analysing and labelling certain models of male behaviour
as ‘manly’ or ‘masculine’, we risk reinforcing the same violent models of males we seek to deconstruct
by claiming that men are essentially violent ‘warriors’ and/or
Depicting women as being essentially
‘protectors’ drawn to weapons. This shuts out alternative male
peaceful and men as essentially violent
models of behaviour—those that do not exhort violence—as being
reinforces the hegemonic, patriarchal
‘unmanly’ and further perpetuates the notion that to be a man
models of masculinity and femininity and
is to be inherently violent. Not all men are fascinated by weapons,
simultaneously obscures many patterns of
not all men see carrying a gun as an integral part of masculinity.
dominance and violence.
Conversely, women may be fascinated by weapons and certain
types of handguns are marketed specifically for a female clientele—though one has to keep in mind
that a primary motivation for women to arm themselves may be the fear of becoming a victim of
sexualized violence, perpetuated mostly by males.36 Depicting women as being essentially peaceful
and men as essentially violent reinforces the hegemonic, patriarchal models of masculinity and femininity
and simultaneously obscures many patterns of dominance and violence.
An example of this discussion is given by Adam Jones, who counters Susan Brownmiller’s ‘derisive
comment’ on the Bosnian, Croatian and Slovenian wars of the early 1990s that ‘Balkan men have
proved eager to fight and die for their particular subdivision of Slavic ethnicity’ by showing that most
male fighters were not enthusiastic, hyper-masculine ethnic warriors, but rather often forcibly conscripted,
at times confused and often desperate men caught up against their will in a lethal and brutal conflict.37
While men were—almost exclusively—responsible for the rapes, murders, maiming and pillaging in
the conflicts, men were also over-represented in the victim category as well—with the exception of
rape victims, where male victims are virtually absent. This is in part due to the immense personal and
extrapolated group stigma of male rape, which leads to severe underreporting.38 Men were usually
underrepresented as refugees, a sign that all sides singled out men of combat age to maintain their own
side’s potential manpower, to send them to detention camps or to be executed. An extreme example
of this was the Srebrenica massacre, in which over 6,500 Bosnian Muslims, almost exclusively men,
were killed.
Another indication that masculine roles other than that of the warrior or the armed protector
exist and are seen as desirable can be seen in statistics quoted by Wendy Cukier.39 In South Africa,
44.9% of men interviewed in three high crime communities wanted to own firearms and in Phnom
Penh, Cambodia, 43% of male respondents would own a gun if it were legal. In both cases, the figures
for females were lower, 34.4% and 31% respectively. This shows that while men are more likely to see
guns as a source of security than women, a majority of the male respondents in areas with high gun
densities and therefore corresponding ‘gun cultures’ and easy availability of arms still did not see it as
desirable to own a gun, even if it were legal. The majority did not view a gun as an essential part of their
masculine identity. The number of would-be gun owners is correspondingly smaller in societies with
lower gun densities and lower crime rates.

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Juvenile bravado, exaggerated machismo and ‘locker room’ talk with regard to weapons and war
can also be seen as an effort to mask one’s unease with trying to live up to the warrior role. The
sexualized language Cohn described as well as the gendered references used to depict weapons and
weapons systems thus become an effort to cover up the horrors of war and the lethal consequences of
armed masculinity.

Disarming masculinities

While there is an undeniable and visible ‘special relationship’ between men and weapons, this is
not simply a ‘natural’ consequence of being a man—nor do all men share this special relationship.
While the relationship between men and weapons is often sexually charged, simply equating weapons
with phallic extensions is too simple. ‘Doing’ masculinity with the help of a weapon is instead the visible
manifestation of certain, violent and often militarized enactments of masculinity, which need to be
analysed in their respective historical and cultural surroundings. These enactments, in turn, have far-
reaching social and political consequences, be it on domestic violence or foreign policy. Violent models
of masculinity often become hegemonic, with the weapon being used as both a symbol and a tool to
demonstrate and enforce this hegemony against others, including competing masculinities. This is
often the case in conflict and post-conflict situations but also in societies that are more or less openly
violent. Moreover, militarized masculinity is often a backlash to perceived threats to male dominance
and power.
Disarmament measures, along with the demobilization and reintegration of former combatants,
are often dealt with as technical ‘numbers game’. A successful and sustainable process of disarmament,
though, requires a gendered analysis of the situation, looking at how weapons, concepts of violence
and notions of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ interact in the respective socio-cultural environment. The
reduction in the number and strict control of weapons should be coupled with a ‘demobilization’ of
the militarized, violent concepts of masculinity that would see a weapons collection process as
‘emasculating’. One needs to work with the alternative unarmed, non-violent concepts of masculinity
and femininity already existing in the society in question, further developing and opening possibilities
for these and empowering them, thus laying the groundwork for a sustainable peace.

Notes

1. Michael Ignatieff, 1998, The Warrior’s Honour: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience, Vintage Press, London.
2. On the role of identity in conflicts, see, for example, Mary Kaldor, 1999, New and Old Wars. Organized Violence in
a Global Era, Polity Press, Cambridge; and on militarized gender identities in conflicts, Cynthia Enloe, 2000,
Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los
Angeles.
3. Lois Bryson, 1987, Sport and the Maintenance of Masculine Hegemony, Women’s Studies International Forum,
vol. 10, no. 4.
4. Michael Messner, 1990, When Bodies are Weapons: Masculinity and Violence in Sport, International Review for
the Sociology of Sport, vol. 25, no. 3, ICSS, Hamburg.
5. On male rites of passage and military training and actual combat as a ‘test of manhood’, see for example Joshua
S. Goldstein, 2001, War and Gender, Cambridge University Press; on inner-city gang violence as a rite of passage,
see Don Pinnoch, 1996, Gangs, Guns and Rites of Passage, Conflict Resolution Center International Newsletter, Fall;
for South Africa, see for example Gun Control Alliance, undated, Youth and Guns, GCA Sector Pamphlet, available
at <http://www.gca.org.za/facts/pamphlets/youth.htm>; on role of firearms in ‘becoming a man’ in Yemenite
society, see Derek Miller, 2003, Demand, Stockpiles and Social Controls: Small Arms in Yemen. Occasional Paper
No. 9, Small Arms Survey, Geneva, available at <http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/OPapers/OPaper9Yemen.pdf>.

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6. See, for example, Eric Hobsbawm, 1993, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, Cambridge
University Press.
7. Uta Klein, 1999, ‘Our best boys’—The gendered nature of civil-military relations in Israel, Men and Masculinities,
vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 47–65.
8. See, for example, Miller, 2003, op. cit. for Yemen; for Sudan and South Africa, Amani El Jack, 2002, Gender
Perspectives on the Management of Small Arms and Light Weapons in the Sudan, in Vanessa Farr and Kiflemariam
Gebre-Wold (eds), Gender Perspectives on Small Arms and Light Weapons: Regional and International Concerns,
BICC Brief 24, Bonn, Bonn International Center for Conversion, pp. 51–57, available at <http://www.bicc.de/
publications/briefs/brief24/content.html>; for Jamaica, Marylin Thomson, 2003, Boys will be Boys: Addressing
the Social Construction of Gender in Frances Cleaver (ed.), Masculinities Matter—Men, Gender and Development,
London, Zed Books.
9. Descriptions of the ‘Kalashnikov Culture’ in Bosnia-Herzegovina include Anthony Loyd, 1999, My War Gone By, I
Miss it So, Anchor Press, London; in Pakistan, Martin Regg Cohn, 2001, Talking Tough on Guns in Pakistan, The
Toronto Star, 11 April, the latter quoted in the Small Arms Survey 2002 and available at <http://www.worldpress.org/
Americas/65.cfm>.
10. Small Arms Survey, 2002, Small Arms Survey 2002—Counting the Human Cost, Oxford University Press, p. 70.
11. On representations of ‘robust peacekeeping’ in the media, see for example Tom Holert and Mark Terkessidis, 2002,
Entsichert. Krieg als Massenkultur im 21.Jahrhundert, Köln, Kiepenhauer & Witsch; on challenges of adapting
notions of militarized masculinity to the needs of peacekeeping missions, see for example Paul Higate, 2003,
Peacekeeping and Gendered Relations, in University of Peace, Peace and Conflict Monitor, San Jose, available at
<http://www.monitor.upeace.org/innerpg.cfm?id_article=74>; and Heidi Hudson, 2000, Mainstreaming Gender
in Peacekeeping Operations: Can Africa Learn from International Experience?, African Security Review, vol. 9,
no. 4.
12. See for example David Hemenway, Tomoko Shinoda-Tagawa and Matthew Miller, 2002, Firearm Availability and
Female Homicide Victimization Rates Among 25 Populous High-Income Countries, Journal of the American Medical
Women’s Association, vol. 57, pp. 100–104, available at <http://jamwa.amwa-doc.org/vol57/57_2_8.htm>,
quoted in Farr and Gebre-Wold (eds), 2002, op. cit.; for Sudan, see El Jack, 2002, op. cit.
13. For male to male aggression, see Wendy Cukier, 2002, Gendered Perspectives on Small Arms Proliferation and
Misuse: Effects and Policies in Farr and Gebre-Wold (eds), 2002, op. cit; for Central American figures see William
Godnick, Robert Muggah and Camilla Waszink, 2002, Stray Bullets: The Impact of Small Arms Misuse in Central
America, Occasional Paper No. 5, Small Arms Survey, Geneva, available at <http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/
OPapers/OPaper5CentralAmerica.pdf>.
14. See for example Sharon Moyer and Peter J. Carrington, 1992, Gun Availability And Firearms Suicide, Working
Document WD1993-3e, Department of Justice of Canada, Ottawa, available at <http://www.cfc-ccaf.gc.ca/en/
research/publications/reports/1990-95/reports/suici_rpt.asp>.
15. For gender stereotypes in video games, see for example, Mediascope, 1999, Girls and Video Games, Issue Brief
Series, Studio City, Mediascope Press, available at <http://www.mediascope.org/pubs/ibriefs/gvg.htm>; for gender
roles and violence in video games see T.L. Dietz, 2000, An examination of violence and gender role portrayals in
video games, Women & Language, vol. 23, no. 2.
16. Helen Caldicott, 1984, Missile Envy, New York, Bantam Press.
17. Carol Cohn, 1987, Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals, Signs: Journal of Woman in Culture
and Society, vol. 12, no. 4.
18. For US Marine Corps chant and distribution of condoms, see Goldstein, 2001, op. cit.; for South Africa, see Adèle
Kirsten, 2002, White Men with Weapons in Farr and Gebre-Wold (eds), 2002, op. cit.
19. The Death of a Ball-Turret Gunner
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
20. Cohn, 1987, op. cit.; Goldstein, 2001, op. cit.
21. Messner, 1990, op. cit.
22. Joanna Bourke, 1999, An Intimate History of Killing. Face to Face Killing in 20th Century Warfare, London, Granta
Books.
23. ‘Hyper-masculinity’ as a concept is the subject of some debate and is of course dependent on the individual social,
cultural and temporal context. Three characteristics linked to the notion of hyper-masculinity that are of interest
here are an emphasis on strength, aggressiveness and sexual potency.
24. Interview with Klaus Theweleit, Die Tageszeitung, Berlin, 19 September 2001.

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25. Nancy Ehrenreich, 2002, Masculinity and American Militarism, Tikkun Magazine, vol. 17, no. 6, available at
<http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/index.cfm/action/tikkun/issue/tik0211/article/021113d.html>.
26. Human Rights Watch, 2002, The War Within The War—Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Eastern Congo,
London, Human Rights Watch, available at <http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/drc/>; Human Rights Watch, 2003,
‘We’ll Kill You If You Cry’— Sexual Violence in the Sierra Leone Conflict, Human Rights Watch, New York, available at
<http://hrw.org/reports/2003/sierraleone/>.
27. Three-dimensional, animated models—almost exclusively of American weapons systems—allow the user to simulate
firing firearms or tank guns and dropping bombs. See, for example, CNN, available at <http://www.cnn.com/
SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/weapons/index.html>.
28. Robert Dean, 2001, Imperial Brotherhood. Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy, Amherst, University of
Massachusetts Press.
29. Bourke, 1999, op. cit.
30. See, for example, Ronald Hyam, 1990, Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience, Manchester, Manchester
University Press; or on militarized settler masculinity in South Africa, see Robert Morrell, 2001, From Boys to
Gentlemen: Settler Masculinity in Colonial Natal 1880–1920, Pretoria, University of South Africa Press.
31. Lynda E. Boose, 1993, Techno-Muscularity and the ‘Boy Eternal’: From the Quagmire to the Gulf, in Miriam Cooke
and Angela Woollacott (eds.), Gendering War Talk, Princeton, Princeton University Press; Susan Jeffords, 1994,
Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Years, Rutgers University Press.
32. See, for example, Holert and Terkessidis, 2002, op. cit.
33. See, for example, Jacklyn Cock, 1991, Colonels and Cadres: War and Gender in South Africa, London, Oxford
University Press; or Oliver Phillips, 2001, Conscripts in camp: making military men, African Gender Institute
Newsletter, vol. 8 (July), available at <http://web.uct.ac.za/org/agi/newslet/vol8/index.htm>.
34. Examples of these dynamics at work in the conflict zones of northern Uganda are described by Chris Dolan, 2002,
Collapsing Masculinities and Weak States—a Case Study of Northern Uganda, in Frances Cleaver (ed.), Masculinities
Matter— Men, Gender and Development, London, Zed Books.
35. For Uganda, see, for example, Dolan, 2002, op. cit.; for recent examples from Afghanistan, see Human Rights
Watch, 2002, We Want to Live as Humans—Repression of Women and Girls in Western Afghanistan, available at
<http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/afghnwmn1202>; from Iraq, see Human Rights Watch, 2003, Climate of Fear:
Sexual Violence and Abduction of Women and Girls in Baghdad, available at <http://hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq0703>;
for southern Africa, see Vanessa Farr, 2002, Gendering Demilitarisation as a Peacebuilding Tool, BICC Paper 20,
Bonn, Bonn International Centre for Conversion, available at <http://www.bicc.de/general/paper20/paper20.pdf>;
and on the use of small arms in gendered post-conflict violence, see Vanessa Farr, 2002, A Gendered Analysis of
International Agreements on Small Arms and Light Weapons, in Farr and Gebre-Wold (eds), 2002, op. cit.
36. On the manipulation of these fears by means of advertisement by the arms industry, see for example Vanessa Farr,
2003, Men, Women and Guns—Understanding how Gender Ideologies Support Small Arms and Light Weapons
Proliferation, in BICC, Conversion Survey 2003, Bonn, BICC.
37. Adam Jones, 1994, Gender and Ethnic Conflict in ex-Yugoslavia, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 115–
34, available at <http://adamjones.freeservers.com>.
38. See, for example, Dubravka Zarkov, 2001, The Body of the Other Man: Sexual Violence and the Construction of
Masculinity, Sexuality and Ethnicity in Croatian Media, in C. Moser and F. Clark (eds), Victims, Perpetrators or
Actors? Gender, Armed Conflict and Political Violence, London, Zed Books, pp. 69–82.
39. Cukier, 2002, op. cit.

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