2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

“Sex/Wars:  Gender on the Front Lines” proposes “difficult conversation” about challenges facing women scholars who write critical accounts of war and the military. Recent women’s scholarship has shaped “new military history” as well as a robust scholarship on conflict, international relations, and securitization.  Yet military service and scholarship on war remain highly masculinized fields in which it remains common to question the legitimacy of women, feminism and challenges to conventional masculinity.  This roundtable gathers scholars whose research on the US military prompted gendered resistance from individuals claiming to defend the military. While official US military institutions have supported constructive discussion of this research, these individuals have limited scholars’ access to archival materials; hounded them by phone, email, and social media; and issued threats of bodily harm, rape, and employment insecurity. To a remarkable degree, this harassment mirrors the gender discrimination and sexual violence these scholars have revealed within the military.

We propose a wide-ranging, interactive discussion interrogating the problem of gendered legitimacy in the study of war, moderated by a scholar whose research illuminates gendered and sexual violence in the media.  What does persistent resistance to women’s and feminist scholarship on war tell us about the power of militarized masculinity today?  How do these attacks police women’s and feminist scholarship of the military, war, and other traditionally masculine fields?  How do questions of gendered legitimacy in scholarship affect classroom dynamics and public discourse? What options exist for asserting the legitimacy of women’s and feminist scholarship on war and the military?