{"product_id":"gender-is-a-weapon-9780472058365","title":"Gender Is a Weapon: Liberalism, Difference, and US Counterinsurgency","description":"Following the end of the draft in 1973, the US military increasingly offered women the opportunity to transform their lives—to obtain an education, receive healthcare, provide for their families, and prove their worth to the nation. By the time the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan at the turn of the twenty-first century, the labor of women—and Black women in particular—was critical to the military’s ability to simultaneously wage two wars. Within the context of counterinsurgencies fought amid civilian populations, the US military discovered the value of women’s gender difference as a weapon of war.   Through ethnographic and archival research with women soldiers and Marines, as well as military and government officials, Gender Is a Weapon contextualizes women’s service in Iraq and Afghanistan against the promises of liberal inclusion unfolding throughout the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Centered on narratives of Black and Indigenous women, women of color, immigrant women, and queer women, the book analyzes the transformations of martial citizenship; the racialized language of cultural difference in the US’s revitalized counterinsurgency doctrine; the gendered performances of women in combat and civilian engagement missions; and ultimately, the irreparable injuries of body and mind with which these women returned home. The epilogue discusses the recent dismantling of DEI in the military and US government more broadly, reflecting on what we can learn from the violent history of military liberal inclusion to help us better understand our contemporary moment. By carefully attending to both the discursive construction and performative enactment of gender in militarized and securitized contexts, the book advances theoretical frames for studying gender in state militaries, militarism, and late liberalism.\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication date:\u003c\/strong\u003e 15 October 2026\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePage count:\u003c\/strong\u003e 312\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e Height 227 mm; Width 154 mm; Thickness 19 mm\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e The University of Michigan Press\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780472058365\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Elizabeth Mesok","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":67646452695290,"sku":"9780472058365","price":29.04,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0522\/4297\/2845\/files\/9780472058365.jpg?v=1791244789","url":"https:\/\/shulphink.com\/products\/gender-is-a-weapon-9780472058365","provider":"Shulph Ink","version":"1.0","type":"link"}