Sovereignty and Power

The Goldstein article talks about three schools of feminist thought in regards to gender and its role in war. The liberal school of thought reminds me a lot of what kids are socialized to believe is "right" in school. Girls can be anything they want to be. Girls can even join the military! But no one says, boys can even join the military! There's an assumption that this kind of feminism is empowering, but it still supports and reinforces an agenda based on male-domination. As the author said, this kind of feminism involves women adapting to society as it is, rather than working to change the actual structure and value system of the society.

The difference feminist view is interesting because it assumes that there exist inherent differences between men and women. They view women as "peaceful" and men as "violent". The most interesting question brought up by this section in my opinion was about sovereignty. Is sovereignty a male-produced ideal that we appreciate based on the fact that our values are male-driven? The problem that I have with this viewpoint is that it perpetuates the dichotomous conception of gender. It seems to call for generalization and doesn't allow for the idea of individualized gender or a variety of genders.

The postmodern feminist view seemed more vague to me. It seems to question the assumptions of the other viewpoints and sees gender as having an important role in war and the military, but that the role and place of gender as changing and not constant.

War seems to be a place where gender roles are important but can also get confused. War can be a place of social change, as it was during WWI, but it can also be a place of role perpetuation and reinforcement of boundaries.