The Warrior Ethos: Discourse and gender in the United States Army since 9/11

Abstract

At the heart of current doctrinal debates in the United States Army between counterinsurgents and warfighters is a fight over the gender identity of the institution itself. With women making up an increasing portion of the Army the default 'maleness' of the institution has become problematic. This has been exacerbated by post-9/11 battlefields in which soldiers not traditionally trained for combat operations, including women, come into contact with the enemy. The Army's response has been twofold. First it has created a new institutional gender identity – the warrior – that is meant to provide women and soldiers traditionally not directly involved in combat with a covering masculinity. Second it has resisted and rejected non-combat operations as insufficiently warrior like. This has created conflict with counterinsurgents seeking to apply modes of power less oriented to destruction – so-called kinetics – and more towards domination and transformation.

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