ABSTRACT
Men’s use of violence in both war and elsewhere has structural significance, serving to maintain relationships of power and stratifying hierarchies between groups on the basis of gender (Enloe, 1997; Bouta, 2004; Baaz & Stern, 2009; Cockburn, 2010). The practices of violence both are the product of gendered logics, mirroring its scripts of masculinity and femininity, and serve to produce these logics by reinforcing their structural conditions. As this research looks at the structure of new war, the framework drawn on most directly is that of the social construction of gender, focusing on the role of gender relations in structuring the practice of war, and of war in reconstructing gender relations. This approach provides the conceptual tools necessary for looking at the differences between manifestations of violence, while remaining focused on the cross-cutting connections between patriarchal forms of violence. Valorised notions of masculinity are at the heart of organised state violence, defining the practice of war and encouraging recruitment (Woodward & Winter, 2007; Parpart & Zalewski, 2008; Barry, 2010). To understand these notions it is necessary to draw on the study of masculinities from sociology and elsewhere.
