Title: Manipulating masculinity
Subtitle: war and gender in modern British and American literature
Description: "Manipulating Masculinity uses literature from World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Iraq wars to argue that when a society labels broadly human traits "feminine," that society can more easily manipulate men to war. All men are bound to detect some of those traits in themselves - and then fear that they have strayed into a feminine, inferior realm. If a society convinces men that fighting is essentially manly, it entices men to war simply to prove that they are not their sisters (sissy, wimp, wuss). Western cultural attitudes toward sex also fuel wars by encouraging the displacement of sexuality into violence, by fostering titillation in combination with guilt and its accompanying need for self-punishment (which war abundantly supplies), and by defining sexual orientations so as to provoke self-doubt in everyone."--Jacket.
Subjects: American literature, English literature, History and criticism, Literature and the conflict, Literature and the war, Literature and the war., Masculinity in literature, Sex role, Sex role., Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975, War and society, War in literature, Women and war, Women and war., World War, 1914-1918, World War, 1939-1945, Vietnam War, 1961-1975, English literature, history and criticism, 20th century, American literature, history and criticism, 20th century, World war, 1914-1918, literature and the war, Vietnam war, 1961-1975, literature and the war
Time periods: 20th century