Ways In Which The Body is Central to the Study of Gender and Politics: Part II Men at War

Within this section, I will highlight the narrative of the Kremlin and the militarisation of Russian family life. Previously, section I, I illustrated how the creation of narratives surrounding war focusing on Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.

Image: BBC News

SECTION II: MEN IN WAR

Russian military advertisements have, for some years, employed stereotypical masculine imagery in the recruitment of soldiers that are strong enough to defend their nation. This illustrates how the male body is categorised through toxic images of what a man ought to be like.

Such aggressive practices that promote and extol war and the military in society risk militarism becoming the ‘norm’, influencing civilians to become stereotyped ‘toxic’ men. For example, the Russian Hell’s Angels, or Night Wolves, sponsored by the Kremlin, depict and were instrumental in the annexation of Crimea, ride around in Harley-Davidsons and host huge concerts whilst worshipping Stalin and Putin and openly calling for the resurrection of the Russian Empire.

In this way, the Kremlin weaponises toxic masculinity, especially since Putin makes appearances with the Night Wolves to create an image of a strong government that will defend the nation from internal and external threats. Hence, the male body and masculinity have been instrumentalised in pursuing political goals.

However, the female body has also been utilised in the militarisation of Russian family life. For example, a female group calling itself ‘Putin’s Army’ (Armiya Putina) was formed to unite ‘beautiful and self-confident young girls’ who believed that Putin is ‘a trustworthy and honest politician’ and thus deserving of maintaining his Russian presidency.

This group used the stereotypical seductive role of the female body in a militarised fashion, showing them ‘tearing anything apart for Putin’. Nevertheless, there is an overly intimate connection between nationhood and manhood in Putin's Russia.

For instance, even though women have the legal right to serve in the Russian Army, attitudes toward women in the military conform to particular gender types and are exemplified by activities such as ‘Miss Russian Army’. This is because men and women have different civic obligations expected to fulfil, and gender ideologies influence these duties.

As the Soviet Union glorified motherhood as a ‘unique obligation to society’, women were supposed to raise the next generation of Soviet citizens that would fight for their motherland. This ideology has been carried forward in Putin’s rule. In this way, motherhood imparts tremendous legitimacy to militant projects to maintain and expand the solid Russian society. Henceforth, the female body is fit for motherhood, whereas the male body is fit for military service.

However, these binary ideologies of the male and female body are narrow and exclusionary to the LGBTQI+ community. Russian propaganda portrays homosexual relationships as non-traditional, re-engineering civilians to become what the government wishes them to be.

Russian political narratives have defined gay men as not ‘proper men’ and violently punishes them. Thus, as Beauvoir maintains that one is not born, but becomes woman, I contend that one is not born but ‘becomes’ man.

Next week, section III explores the weaponisation of the body, especially analysing how rape is used as a weapon of war and political tactics.

Find out more:

Basham. V. M. 2018. ‘Liberal militarism as insecurity, desire and ambivalence: Gender, race and the everyday geopolitics of war.’ Militarism and security: Dialogue, possibilities and limits, Vol. 49 (1-2) pp32-43. https://journals-sagepub-com.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/doi/pdf/10.1177/0967010617744977.

Caiazza, A. 2002. Mothers and Soldiers: Gender Citizenship and civil society in contemporary Russia. Routledge, Great Britain.

Foxall. A. 2012. ‘Photographing Vladimir Putin: Masculinity, Nationalism and Visuality in Russian Political Culture.’ Geopolitics. Volume 18, Issue 1. Pp132-156.

Human Rights Watch. 2014. License to Harm: Violence and Harassment against LGBT People Activists in Russia. Viewed 26/04/2022. https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/12/15/license-harm/violence-and-harassment-against-lgbt-people-and-activists-russia.

Legatum Institute. 2015. ‘The New Authoritarians: Ruling Through Disinformation.’ Beyond Propaganda. Pp1-34. https://li.com/reports/the-new-authoritarians-ruling-through-disinformation/.

Parashar, S. 2014, ‘(En)gendered Terror: Feminist Approaches to Political Violence’, in M Evans (ed.), The Sage Handbook of Feminist Theories, SAGE Publications, pp607-621.

The Council for Global Equality. 2022. The Facts on LGBT Rights in Russian, viewed 26/04/2022. http://www.globalequality.org/component/content/article/1-in-the-news/186-the-facts-on-lgbt-rights-in-russia.

The Rubin Report. 2021, Russian Army Ad Makes Woke US Army Ad Look Like a Joke, YouTube. https://youtu.be/P5ar7vYg0pY.