Articles in Sociology: War and Gender

In her article "Men Hate War Too: Gender Does Not Predispose Men to War", Barbara Ehrenreich criticizes an earlier article by Francis Fukuyama entitled "Women and the Evolution of World Politics." She explains that Fukuyama claims that men have the monopoly on violence and aggression in the world because they are biologically predisposed in a way that women are not. Ehrenreich argues that men are not actually predisposed to violence, aggression, and war any more than women are and that it is only because of current perceptions of masculinity that we assume men are more violent and war-like than women.

I enjoyed reading this article because it really cut down to the meat of the issue, unlike Fukuyama's article. I agreed with the article's stance that while men are more war-like in society, that has not always been the case nor is it simply an issue of it being in men's genetic code to be aggressive and violent. The potential for violence really does like in all of us. It is really only because we have been socialized into the specific roles we hold today that men are the war-mongers while women are viewed as being peaceful caretakers. History, as Ehrenreich points out, has shown us that the world used to be different. The original deities of long-dead peoples were not only female rather than male, but they were not the push-over, matronly goddesses we think of today. Rather, they were harsher, stronger figures. (Ehrenreich) And flesh and blood women have not always been just wives, mothers, and vegetable gatherers. Ehrenreich points out that in Russia, the ancient remains were found of women who had been buried not only with weapons, but with evidence of having sustained injuries from similar weapons. (Ehrenreich).