Anna Wardecka: Is war gendered?

Edward Said, a Palestinian-American literary scholar, based his theory of post-colonialism on the conviction, that the image of the Middle East and Orient delivered by western explorers, writers, and political scientists were in fact bogus. According to Said, these images have been deliberately fabricated to suit a particular discourse – juxtaposing civilized West with the primitive “other”. In his opus magnum, Orientalism, he expresses a belief that such a narrative has been formed in order to justify military campaigns and the atrocities that followed them. This rhetoric seems startlingly similar to gender and racially biased Afghan policy of George W. Bush.

It has been almost 20 years since the Afghan Invasion. The burden of responsibility for the declaration of war on terrorism and terrorists lies in the hands of the 43rd president of the United States. His foreign policy was justified primarily by the defense of human rights and liberal values in the world, which were supposedly threatened by religious and international terrorism. However noble it may have seemed, the United States had once again claimed the right of being the world's bodyguard. This was the starting point for a discourse in which the United States act not only in their own name but aspire to represent the liberal civilization of the West as a whole. 17 th November 2001 witnessed Laura Bush’s radio address to the nation. She was the first presidential spouse to deliver one completely on her own. Needless to say how historic of an event that was. To actively participate in the political discourse meant abandoning the impartial role of the first lady. “The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women” – she concluded. Such a sudden interest in the plight of the Afghan women, morally legitimizing the military intervention, may be considered a modern reflection of past imperialist actions. The narrative of “average third-world women oppressed with her own cultural heritage” has been illustrated with numerous examples in the past, such as child marriage and sati (a practice of self-immolation of the widow on her husband's funeral pyre). This time is was symbolized by a veil on the head.

The common perception of the veil as a representation of male dominance has been frequently challenged. The burqa has been considered a rather modern and liberating notion, allowing women to leave their sacred home sphere while still following the basic principles of Islam. And yet, with the Operation Enduring Freedom, Bush's administration began to set a new frontier of discourse about women and their rights.

At that time, Afghan women were portrayed as silent, passive victims of the Taliban regime, with the mandatory coverage as a signifier of their oppression. Contemporary feminist critics point out that the same rules of gender logic have been applied to American women – they are to play the so-called “damsel-in-distress”. Although pictured as beneficiaries of a liberal political and social system, exercising their right to work and education, they are still to be presented as in need of the protection of American men.

Ironic, isn't it? Given how accustomed we've grown to the situation, it’s just begging to notice how a deliberately constructed discourse can shift our perception for good.

Anna Wardecka

Cover illustration: Zofia Klamka