Beyond Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Thinking About Women's Violence In Global Politics
by Caron E. Gentry /
2015 / English / PDF, EPUB
1.2 MB Download
When we discuss violent acts committed by women, our responses are almost always rooted in deeply gendered assumptions about women. We express surprise and shock that a woman could be capable of such an act—a reaction that relies on a long history of unspoken assumptions about what is proper behavior for a woman. With Beyond Mothers, Monsters, Whores, Caron Gentry and Laura Sjoberg apply the understanding afforded by that lens to individual violence in global politics. The authors begin by demonstrating the crucial interdependence of the individual and international levels of global politics in the lives of violent women—but they then show how this interdependence is inaccurately depicted, or ignored altogether, in public, political, or media discussions of women’s violence. An eye-opening exploration of a major topic in the study of global conflict and women’s lives, Beyond Mothers, Monsters, Whores will be essential for both scholars and activistsBeyond Mothers, Monsters, Whores takes the suggestion in Mothers, Monsters, Whores that it is important to see genderings in characterizations of violent women, and to use critique of those genderings to retheorize individual violence in global politics. It begins by demonstrating the interdependence of the personal and international levels of global politics in violent women's lives, but then shows that this interdependence is inaccurately depicted in gender-subordinating narratives of women's violence. Such narratives, the authors argue, are not only normatively problematic on the surface but also intersect with other identifiers, such as race, religion, and geopolitical location.
