‘Man(ne)’s world’: explaining the paradoxical nature of attitudes towards women in combat

Abstract

ABSTRACT Enduring resistance to women joining combat roles, ostensibly to protect those women, is paradoxical when juxtaposed against the everyday dangers that women face. This paper draws attention to such sites of contradiction, summarizing the literature that investigates these before bringing Kate Manne’s ‘logic of misogyny’ into the conversation. Manne’s characterization of misogyny as a ‘hostile forcefield’, and her assertion that women are essentialised as givers, not takers, provide additional traction for understanding why women in combat roles are subject to an array of impossible inconsistencies, whilst the notion of ‘regendering’ provides some promise for beginning to unravel these contradictions.