Peace Education: How We Come to Love and Hate War by Nel Noddings

Author:Nel Noddings
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: General / General
ISBN: 9780521193825
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2011-10-29T18:30:00+00:00

Cambridge Books Online

http://ebooks.cambridge.org/

Peace Education

How We Come to Love and Hate War

Nel Noddings

Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511894725

Online ISBN: 9780511894725

Hardback ISBN: 9780521193825

Paperback ISBN: 9781107658721

Chapter

8 - Women and War pp. 111-124

Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511894725.009

Cambridge University Press

8

Women and War

h

ere is an impressive history of women’s opposition to war but, as

in almost every issue treated in this book, there is also considerable

ambiguity. Not all women have opposed war. In this chapter, we’ll

look i rst at that ambiguity and suggest some reasons for it. h

en we’ll

consider some of the classic literature written by women against war;

again, ambiguities will be noted both in that literature and in critiques

of it. In the last section, we’ll review feminist literature that extends

the discussion of peace beyond the cessation of war to the environ-

ment of family and community.

women’s support of war

Women have ot en supported war, sometimes actively cheering the

i ght on, sometimes passively accepting that they have no real choice

but to support their men in a decision for which many of them have

had similarly little choice. h

e allure of nationalistic patriotism cap-

tivates women as well as men. Although, until very recently, women

could not participate in combat, they have struggled with the “honor”

of becoming Gold Star Mothers.

Traditional descriptions of masculinity and femininity have

aggravated the male tendency to violence. Traditionally, women –

“true women” – have been expected to support men in upholding a

code of honor dedicated to “God and country.” Jungians have some-

times represented an extreme in their description of femininity and

masculinity. Esther Harding, for example, tells the illustrative story

of a soldier who is due to report to his regiment but is induced to

remain with a woman he loves. She uses her sex appeal to get him

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112

Peace Education

to stay with her “when his duty or honor call him away.” 1 Harding

i nds this act reprehensible, commenting, “All true women blame

the woman who acts this way, rather than the man,” and she follows

up by saying, “A woman who truly loves her man feels under an

obligation not to tempt him by her feminine charm, but to safeguard

his honor.” 2

Most contemporary Jungians have given up the notion of abso-

lute archetypes and of religious essentialism. 3 Feminist thinkers have

condemned essentialism with some vigor. But, as so ot en happens,

writers on opposite sides of the issue have sometimes taken extreme

positions and failed to give defensible, nuanced arguments. When

essentialism is cast in biblical terms describing women as second-

thought creations designed to help men (especially in procre-

ation), women are right to reject it entirely. Indeed, every rational

person should reject it. Similarly, the gender archetypes of ered by

Jung are too contrived and perfect, too sharply separated from the

practical world.

But it is not rationally defensible to deny all elements of essen-

tialism. Human beings are biological organisms, and we are af ected

by evolution. h

ere

is something called maternal instinct , and it has

heavily inl uenced the development of what might be called cultural

evolution . 4 It would indeed be remarkable if millennia of caregiving

experience had not endowed women with some interpersonal apti-

tudes not widely developed in men.

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