Contextualising the Study of Gender and War

Abstract

It is the aim of this chapter to draw a picture of the context within which both US military perception management operations and their gendered and gendering mechanisms are situated. As it is crucial for the understanding and interpretation of any matter to historicise it thoroughly, this will be the primary intention of the following chapter. The attempt to provide these varying backdrops will proceed from the general to the specific. This means that it will begin with an overview of the general and recent societal transformations before moving on to a more narrow perspective that provides a cursory survey of what is often referred to in the literature as ‘the changing nature of warfare’ and including some of its differing aspects and perspectives. A further aim is to portray matters and enquiries pertaining to the topical area of gender and war and finally to briefly display the recent historical developments of the US military’s manipulative influence operations. In successively addressing these various contexts that are, however, equally relevant for the particular topic of this book, I simultaneously set out the ‘factual’ and the literary context, with the literature gaining in importance the more specific the contexts become.