Response by Joy Damousi and Marilyn Lake

Abstract

[Extract] It is indeed an honour that 25 years after the publication of Gender and War its enduring intellectual significance and political relevance still define the volume’s reception.1 A gendered critique of war – in the past and present – remains as vital as ever, it seems, as the wars of the twenty-first century and their aftermaths loom large in our troubled global world. We continue to see the nexus between masculinities and war writ large. Through the very language of war as well as its violence and destruction, in which various forms of heroic masculinity are still celebrated and commemorated, military conflict continues to shape gender relations and the masculinities (and sometimes femininities) of leaders and combatants. From the Gulf War, which opened the decade of the 1990s, to the Bosnian conflict, Chechen war, Afghanistan and African wars, and more recently the civil war in Syria, political leaders such as Presidents Bush, Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad have asserted their authority and leadership through combat. Significantly, a new form of warfare has emerged called the ‘war on terror’, and media reports have often focused on the brutal violence promoted by organisations such as ISIS.