GENDER IS A WEAPON: LIBERALISM, DIFFERENCE, AND US COUNTERINSURGENCY

Following the end of the draft in 1973, the US military offered women the opportunity to transform their lives—to obtain an education, receive healthcare, and prove their worth to the nation. By the time the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan at the turn of the twenty-first century, the all-volunteer force was heavily reliant on women—particularly Black women and women of color. In the midst of these imperial occupations, the military weaponized gender difference itself, developing all-women counterinsurgency teams to gain greater access to civilian populations while framing the teams as humanitarian, benevolent—even feminist.

This talk will introduce Elizabeth Mesok’s new book, a sobering account of violent paradoxes of women’s military service. Offering powerful commentary on the project of military liberal inclusion at the precise historical moment in which it is unraveling, Mesok forces us to reckon with liberalism’s impossible promises and its cunning work to erase the harms and injuries it leaves in its wake.