Bring Me Men: Military Masculinity and the Benign Façade of American Empire, 1898-2001 (Columbia/Hurst)
This ambitious, well-researched volume will surely stimulate a diverse audience ranging from military practitioners and activists of various stripes to scholars working within a number of disparate fields.(Paul Higate, University of Bristol)Probably no single person deserves more credit for the repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell' than Belkin. As director of the Palm Center, he effectively parried homophobic justifications for excluding gay men and lesbians from the U.S. military, all the while learning unforgettable lessons about the complex culture of military masculinity. This book converts that wisdom into deep scholarship about, and a moral indictment of, the sexual culture at the basis of American military might. This gripping account of the strength and weakness, sadism and masochism, masculinity and femininity, boundedness and porosity, cleanliness and filth that together make up military masculinity -- both at the most intimate level of a single troop's corporeality and at the vastest expanse of American imperial power -- will shock even those who knew all along that inclusion in the U.S. military would be an ambiguous triumph.(Janet Halley, Harvard Law School)One of the smartest analysts of today's United States military, Aaron Belkin challenges the too-simple presumption that an uncomplicated militarized masculinity dominates American soldiers' lives. Instead, through grittily graphic cases, he reveals a dense web of gender confusions and contradictions that foster a culture of obedience inside the military, while nurturing a dangerously undemocratic set of myths among civilians. A timely, significant book.(Cynthia Enloe, author ofNimo's War, Emma's War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War)Belkin's fascinating, original, and authoritative book shows that over the past century the U.S. military has instilled not just hypermasculinity but also its opposites -- intimacy, femininity, queerness, male rape -- to create gender confusion in the ranks and then offer blind obedience to authority as the remedy. A must-read book for anyone interested in gender and war.(Joshua Goldstein, author ofWar and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa)We tend to assume that military masculinity is made through an often brutal suppression of 'unmasculine' human qualities like empathy, nurturing, compassion. Aaron Belkin explodes that facile narrative, and reveals the contradictions at the core of the warrior's identity. The implications for our understanding of gender and American culture more broadly are profound.(Michael Kimmel, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Department of Sociology)This volume reframes our evolving understanding of sexuality and the falsity of the masculine/feminine dualism, and places this process within the context of historical, cultural, and political change in America.(David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization, University of Maryland)A vigorous and fascinating account of military masculinity and its contradictions, embodiment, and links to empire. Sometimes funny and sometimes dismaying, Belkin's book conveys a strong sense of the emotional violence behind the public face of the armed forces.(Raewyn Connell, author ofMasculinities)A tour de force. Belkin reveals the cultural and historical meanings of masculinity in the military of yesterday and tomorrow, including symbolic and psychological contradictions posed by masculine/feminine, strong/weak, dominant/subordinate, victor/victim, civilized/barbaric, clean/dirty, and straight/queer. A great contribution to contemporary scholarship and policy.(Gilbert H. Herdt, editor ofMoral Panics, Sex Panics: Fear and the Fight Over Sexual Rights)Belkin prosecutes [enlisted life] for the macho rot under its polished decorum.(Dan ZakWashington Post)Bring Me Menprovides a valiant showing of query into the culture of masculinity and its meaning for the U.S. military and its position of power (and wealth) on the global stage.(Annessa BabicH-Diplo)