Women and War

Abstract

While the media's response to the destruction in America has been deafening, the voices ofwomen have grown strangely quiet. Not for over a generation has an event so transfixed the world. Everywhere, on buses, at corner shops, offices, school gates, and hairdressers, men andwomen seem able to think and talk ofonly one thing— the terrorist attacks on America. Yet, what is rapidly becoming clear is that in a crisis like this, many ofthe gender differences between men and women are thrown into sharp relief. The most striking ofthese is the different attitudes towards a military attack on Afghanistan as revealed in recent polls. The Guardian's icm poll on Tuesday showed a remarkable consistency ofattitudes across age and political affiliation; the one big gap was between men and women: 74% ofmen support air strikes and only 58% ofwomen. Whereas 55% ofmen were prepared to contemplate war, 32% ofwomen opposed any military action ifit meant war. This isn't a one-off. Polls in both the 1990 Gulf war and the 1999 Kosovo war showed the same gap. In 1990, 61% ofmen and only 39% of women thought Britain should agree to using British troops to get Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait; nearly half of women (49%) opposed military action. In Kosovo, the gap between men and women narrowed after atrocities against Kosovan Albanians were broadcast: 76% ofmen were in favour ofair strikes and 62% ofwomen. A few days later, after nato mistakenly bombed a convoy ofrefugees, women's support for air strikes fell sharply to 56% while men's held steady. Equally intriguing is how women have been wiped off many newspaper pages and television screens. Despite significant advances in the number ofwomen in the media, the crisis has exposed how many ofthem are in the softer areas