When Are States Hypermasculine?

Citation:

Maruska, Jennifer Heeg. 2010. “When Are States Hypermasculine?” In Gender and International Security: Feminist Perspectives, edited by Laura Sjoberg, 235-55. Oxon: Routledge.

Author: Jennifer Heeg Maruska

Annotation:

Summary:

"By using gender as a theoretical tool, I will demonstrate how American hegemonic masculinity—or a significant subsection of it—became hypermasculine in the days, months, and years following September 11, 2001. This development is key to understanding how the war Iraq was sold to and bought by the American people. The consequences of this hypermasculinity include popular support for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq as well as the re-election of President George W. Bush in 2004. In this chapter, I will elaborate the concepts of hegemonic masculinity and hypermasculinity, based on previous theorizing (largely by R. W. Connell and Charlotte Hooper). I will then apply these principles to the post-9/11 era, suggesting that both the Bush administration (the agent) and American mainstream culture itself (the structure) contributed to the invasion of Iraq. By applying a gender-sensitive lens, and putting hypermasculinity into a historical context, both the decision to invade Iraq and the popular support such an idea received will be made much clearer" (Maruska 2010, 236).

Topics: Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender Analysis, Gendered Discourses, Gendered Power Relations, Security Regions: Americas, North America, Asia, Middle East Countries: Iraq, United States of America

Year: 2010

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