Veiled references: Constructions of gender in the Bush administration discourse on the attacks on Afghanistan post-9/11

Abstract

Understanding the ways in which the discursive construction of gender allowed for the US-led attacks on Afghanistan to be considered a legitimate response to the attacks of 9/11 is vital to the study of international relations and for the reclaiming of a feminist politics of the attacks. Through the identification and exploration of various representations of identity in the period after 9/11 and before the attacks on Afghanistan, I will illustrate the centrality of narratives of gender to the production of a recognizable and legitimate narrative of war. I focus on the identities of ‘the nation’, ‘the enemy’ and ‘the intervention’, with each exploring not only the ways in which they are created and perpetuated, but also the ways in which they make certain responses, actions and attitudes permissible and censor others. In conclusion, I draw attention to the economic concerns of the USA that were marginalized within the discursive construction of identity post-9/11, and the ways in which the tensions created by this marginalization can be used as a critical tool to begin to unpick gendered constructions that were represented as seamless at the time.