Introduction

        This essay was written this most recent semester for my Global Gender Politics class. We were asked to choose a prompt, and I chose "According to international relations feminists like Laura Sjoberg and Caron Gentry, why is it necessary to unpack the mother, monster and whore narratives that often describe violent women? As you answer this question, make sure to describe what the mother, monster and whore narratives are and illustrate how they get used to describe violent women and to what end. In other words, how do such narratives function and why is that important to recognize?" I felt like this was a very important topic to address for myself. I want to continue to learn about how gender inequality works and what is currently taking place in our society that perpetuates these inequalities. This paper was particularly interesting to me as before this class I did not think about the inequalities and the gendered aspect when a woman commits a violent act. Through this paper I am better able to see things from others' perspectives, learning objective four. As a woman, I have not thought in depth about why a woman does what she does if she is committing a violent act. I simply think of it as a person committing a violent act, which means there could be any number of reasons or motivations for doing so. After learning about the narratives, I am better able to understand how many men and women categorize women by these narratives and how the intersectional systems work. This includes media, politics, and punishment.

Artifact

Introduction

         International relations, military, war, and violence all have one thing in common -- they are all gendered. Further, they all neglect to address women and women’s roles as what they are rather than the unconscious connection to the person’s gender before addressing their actions. It is seen time and time again throughout history, we see it in Abu Ghraib and we see with Jessica Lynch among many other nationalities and nation states. According to international relations feminists like Laura Sjoberg and Caron Gentry, it is necessary to unpack the mother, monster, and whore narratives that often describe violent women. These narratives are used to further gender women who act violently for political purposes and in general. Addressing these mother, monster, and whore narratives are important because it has continued the cycle of systematic inequality and oppression of women and their actions, most significantly in the global political platform.

Mother Narrative

         The mother narrative has been used to describe women who become violent, politically or not, in aims to discredit them or boil the reasonings or motives for their actions down to simply their roles as a mother. The mother narrative assumes that women make choices based on their roles as mothers. It is centralized around the idea that successes or failures within motherhood will dictate a woman’s actions and if violent, then the narrative explains and almost forgives the actions. It is important to note this narrative is centered around their biologically deterministic assumptions rather than their physiological assumptions and arguments (Gentry, 73).

         Another aspect of the mother narrative is the ‘marital narrative’. This narrative refers to the women engaged in political violence, the women’s violence is often attributed to vengeance driven by maternal and domestic disappointments and are characterized as manipulation of her will to serve the political goals of her husband (Gentry, 71-72). Their actions are attributed to their reaction, emotion, or connection to their husbands. If they are violent, it must be because they were influenced by their husbands or because they felt betrayed enough. The value of their own actions is not attributed to them as a human but to their gender and their genders interaction with men. In both of these narratives, women must be so overwhelmed by grief and fear of the loss of their men that they have no control over their actions. “In many ways a woman who engages in political violence is depicted as the modern Medea -- as a violent, evil woman who commits treacherous acts for her man or as a woman whose love has forsaken her…. driving her to revenge” (Gentry, 70). This seems to be the only reasonable way any woman would act so unlike how they are supposed to.

Monster Narrative

         Additionally, there is the monster narrative to describe why women partake in violent acts, especially political violent acts. It is used to explain women’s violence as resulting from a biological flaw that disrupts their femininity as opposed to the mother narratives, which account for their violence through characteristics essential to womanhood (Gentry, 93). Much like the other narratives, this narrative essentially discredits women and their actions by stating that they are not responsible for their actions because there is something wrong with their womanhood because this is not how a woman would act. Continuously, people will utilize this narrative in order to demonize women to make sense of how the woman is acting. This is because it is not the societal ‘norm’ for a woman to act in a violent manner in any situation and it is uncomfortable for others when they do. The monster narrative is also applied to women who are seen as lonely, and that violence is how they are coping. Mental illness is also brought up in the monster narrative, that no sane person would commit these acts. Ultimately, the monster narrative is to ridicule the woman for her acts of violence and to claim that she is not a ‘true woman’. However, it is a narrative that is further complicated by the element of sexual fantasy about monstrousness and that will be discussed later.

         During the Iraq war in 2003, when a female Army reserve general was in charge of Abu Ghraib and the female soldiers who abused prisoners there, it disturbed the societal norms of how women should act. First it disturbed the norms because Janis Karpinski was the only female commander in Iraq. Initially her maternal nature was emphasized in stories, referring to her soldiers as her children. However, once news broke out about, he violent acts of abuse and torture that happened under her command, the narrative switched to Karpinski being a monster. However, if it were to be a man in this position, he would be seen as stronger and more of a leader because they can endure the stresses of combat and be held accountable (Sjoberg, 89). Three other females were confirmed to be involved with the abuse at Abu Ghraib, with multiple pictures to prove that they were involved with the torture. This is a prime example of women being put into the monster narrative. Within Sjobergs writing, Agency, Militarized Femininity and Enemy Others, she describes what the ideal military woman is like and compares Jessica Lynch to the women involved in Abu Ghraib. They are supposed to be tough, strong but not violent. “Americans cannot hear the story of wantonly violent women; when they hear about the abuse at Abu Ghraib at all, they have to hear it in a way that denies the agency of the women involved” (Sjoberg, 96) On one end, it is not even acknowledged and on the other end, the public has to apply a narrative in order to feel comfortable about the situation at hand.

Whore Narrative

         The last narrative is the whore narrative, which ultimately states that women either commit violence because of their insatiable need for sex with men, men’s control and ownership of their bodies, or their inability to have sex with men (Gentry, 113). In this narrative, men are seen as the victims. This was initially seen in the Greek myth about the Amazons, when they treated men as slaves and as expendable. Women did not seek to marry; they were seen to have promiscuous behavior and had no need for men after sex. It was said they, “Adopted many of the physical and sexual traits of men...supposed appropriation of masculinity” (Gentry, 112) which was seen as problematic by men. Since this was against their patriarchal norms, these women were seen as dangerous and violent. This narrative is based on the ability and want for women to please men. If women cannot pleasure men or do not wish to pleasure men, then there must be something wrong with them. This influences more than just heterosexual women; it impacts homosexual women most. These women are seen as dangerous and violent for not being attracted to men.

Intersectionality of Two or More Narratives

         However, there can be more than two narratives at play which are seen as problematic to the public eye because they are not certain of how to classify the woman being violent. For instance, a woman can have more than one child and be a ‘perfectly good’ mother all except for one. This has been seen multiple times and the media has a hard time trying to portray what narrative to follow for this. Since she was a perfectly ‘good’ mother for her other children, how could someone kill just one of their children? Oftentimes in this case the monster narrative is then given. Clearly something had to have happened in order for a mother to snap like this. It is out of character, it is out of judgement, it is not how one would or should act, so what happened? Her mental health will be in question, any recent big life changes or events will come into account, and she will be deemed incompetent and/or unstable. Any two narratives can be used for any violent woman if one does not meet the criteria of just one.

Common Themes/How Do These Function

         The overarching theme of using narratives in order to describe and almost justify why a woman would be violent, stems back to the gendered roles women have based on the perpetual and intentional boxes and standards men have decided are acceptable or the ‘societal norm’ of a woman to follow. Historically, men have had the most say in all aspects of life, including home, society, and political aspects. Certain functions, certain actions, certain ways of living are acceptable for women and others are not. War and military are still often seen as places for men because women are not suitable for that kind of pressure. They should be mothers or wives, to please the men. They should want to please men but only monogamously, otherwise they are whores. They can only do wrong when acted on by an outside force, such as men or children, in order to be a part of such violent crimes. These three narratives come back to women following the societal role of pleasing men.

         Another common theme among these narratives is the agency that it takes away from women. For instance, women who are violent are not credited with her own violent choices, in fact they are not seen as her choice at all. It is assumed that she would only do this because she felt like she had no choice at all or that something was innately wrong with her womanhood. It is never just a person acting violently who happens to identify as a female or a woman. These narratives are used to ‘help’ guide people to understand why this person would act this way. Such as, it could never be seen as simple as someone acting out for something, they feel passionate about. For example, when discussed in Beyond Mothers, Monsters, and Whores, it is stated that “Violence is accounted for as a means to the ends of wifehood and motherhood” (Gentry, 73). This further perpetuates the notion that women cannot act on their own accord in regard to violence. It must be for some reason tied to their womanhood or their identity as a woman based on the weight of gendered assumptions about what is deemed appropriate behavior for a female.

         These narratives function because of perpetuated hierarchical, gendered norms. These appropriate behaviors for a female are deeply integrated in our everyday lives and the system in which we live both socially and politically. These narratives function because it helps people understand that we still have these appropriate behaviors, and if violated it must be because one of the standards for a woman was violated. “The idea that women can make violent choices threatens multiple ‘truths’ that social norms hold dear; that women’s violence is scarier than a man’s violence; and that, therefore, women’s extralegal violence is horribly frightening, and indicative of a world gone mad” (Gentry, 91). This makes men, who are coincidentally those in majority of power politically, uncomfortable. So, in order to remain calm, they continue to perpetuate this standard, or assumption of women acting a certain way rather than giving them full agency of their actions. These narratives function out of fear.

Why is This Problematic

         These narratives and how they function are problematic because it continues to allow men, media, and others to bolster this idea that women do not have agency for their body and actions but rather that these are odd cases and not how a female should act. Additionally, it is problematic because it is based off of masculine theories in regard to political violence. At an individual level this is problematic because it grooms women to continue to fit within the stereotypes given to women (mother, nurture, dainty, emotional, needs to be protected, etc.) which further suppresses how they behave, what they say, and what they do. This translates to the global arena directly. What we see on a global scale is what we see on an individual scale, they are parallels and it will not change until the narratives do. As stated in Who is taken seriously, “So because of our failing to take women seriously, we still do not know exactly what we have missed in our understanding of emergent international political economy” (Enloe, 3). At the very basic level, women are not being taken seriously because of these issues which develops into not being taken seriously on a global, political, and economic scale as well as the intersection of each. Without this issue being addressed, there is a lack of valuable knowledge being learned at every level and in multiple facets. This is not just an issue for women, this is an issue for men too.

Importance of Recognition/Issues of Not Addressing It

         This issue is importance recognizing these narratives is that once we are able to recognize that these narratives are an issue and that they are further perpetuating and continuing the cycle of marginalizing women, even in violence, that we can be able to see these narratives for what they are in the media, which is truly narratives. There many facets that go into violence, especially political violence for both men and women but without women having agency for their actions, it continues the mindset that women are less than and that women are not important. It continues the stereotypes of women and continues to put them in categories and boxes with labels when they are multifaceted beings just like men. They are able to have feelings, emotions, thoughts, and agency without it being influenced by men, children, sex, or mental health issues. Without recognition of the issue, women still do not have agency. Without recognition of the issue, men are still the authors and narrators to stories through systematic oppression, most evident in politics and global affairs. Underlying and everyday narratives of mother, monster, and whore lead to global politics and affairs, sometimes violent.

Conclusion

         Women who act on their own accord, for their own personal beliefs, and with their own agendas often are not given the agency they deserve due to three most common narratives of violent women: the mother, monster, and the whore. The mother narrative looks at their motherhood and marital status for signs of why they would have committed violent acts. The monster narrative suggests that a woman must have been done wrong by a man in her life, have a mental issue, and be unstable to justify her actions. The whore narrative has determined that it must be because the woman cannot sexually please a man or does not wish to please a man, and that is the most dangerous. These narratives can intersect and overlap, in order to help the public, justify the actions of a violent crime and all of which end up leading to suggesting there is something wrong with her womanhood. Without the recognition of this issue, the cycle of oppression against women’s agency will continue on an individual level and on an international level and we will continue to not grasp the entirety of the international political economy.

Bibliography

Enloe, C. (2013). Seriously!: Investigating Crashes and Crises as If Women Mattered. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press. Retrieved March 12, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt7zw2r7

Gentry, C. E., & Sjoberg, L. (2015). Beyond mothers, monsters, whores : Thinking about women's violence in global politics. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.comLinks to an external site.

Sjoberg, Laura. (2007). Agency, Militarized Femininity and Enemy Others: Observations From The War In Iraq. International Feminist Journal of Politics - INT FEM J POLIT. 9. 82-101. 10.1080/14616740601066408.