Militerisation, Nation and Gender: Women's Bodies as Arenas of Violent Conflict, in Muslim Societies,

Saigol, R.
Pinar Ilkkaracan ed., For Women for Women's Human Rights (WWHR) 2000 (International)

This paper argues that 'nation' is essentially 'feminine' in construction; the motherland therefore becomes invested with the kind of erotic attraction felt towards women, especially in the figure of a mother. The country appears to be enshrined in these words having strong, romantic and motherly connotations. The desire to control this woman/land is conceived as a masculine trait. Since the desire for women gets transferred onto the nation and women's bodies signify the nation, communal, regional, national or international conflicts are played on their bodies. The female bodies thus become arenas of violent struggle where women are tortured, humiliated, raped and murdered as a part of a process through which the scene of being a nation is created and reinforced. Using songs, idioms and expressions from popular discourse the author analyses how gender ideology underlies this production of nationalist and militarist thought in Pakistan. This paper also studies how in any conflict situation women are violated in sexually specific ways and focuses particularly on the ways in which women's bodies were used as political signs and territories during the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. It concludes with a warning that as global conflict intensifies the men of weak and dependent nations will feel threatened, thus the incarceration of women is likely to increase, with greater emphasis on 'chadar' and 'chardiwari' (four walls).

Key words: Conflict, Violence, Militerisation, Female Body, Nationalist Thought, and Discourse

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