Gender, Patriotism, and the Events of 9/11

Sally Haslanger
MIT, Dept of Linguistics and Philosophy
7/15/03


In the weeks after 9/11/01, the events of that day were described in many ways.  One of the most significant "spins" came from the government: initially the events were described as "a terrorist attack," but not long after they became an "act of war".  We were told that what occurred was not a crime to be addressed by punishing the perpetrators, but an attack on a nation-state which requires us to take up arms against the enemy.  

Why does this shift in conceptualizing the events matter?  Acts of war  and acts of crime call for different responses: in war procedural safeguards (e.g., innocent until proven guilty) are suspended, civil liberties are curtailed, the death of innocents is justified.  Crimes against humanity unite us as human beings in response to the horrific acts of individuals; in contrast, attacks on nation-states call for an identification of "the enemy" as other nation-states, and we are called upon as patriots to defend our country.  

Since the fall of 2001, the US response to the 9/11 attacks continues to frame it as an act of war: procedural safeguards for those captured and held in Guantanomo Bay have been suspended; civil liberties have been curtailed by the Patriot’s Act; other nations, most notably Iraq, have been identified as “the enemy”; and the death of innocents in combat has been justified.  Does anything about this have to do with gender?  

The United States is a proud country.  National pride is a good thing, at least when warranted.   The attack not only wounded people, it wounded our national pride: how could "they" have done this to "us"?   How dare they?  Men and women learn to respond to affronts differently, however.  Women often have their pride wounded by those who hold more power, so they are not in a position to respond with a display of greater power to prove their worth.  Those in subordinate positions have to look for other ways to restore their pride, e.g., they turn inward to re-establish their own intrinsic worthiness, they look for ways in which they may have provoked the affront, they seek more effective ways of communicating with those in power to establish a better and more respectful relationship.  Men, when positioned as powerful, can simply demand respect and threaten those who hesitate.  Demanding respect in this way is seen as a sign of (masculine) strength.   But those of us who have lived on the receiving end of these demands know that they may generate fear and even cooperation, but this is not the same thing as respect.  Demands backed by force may be effective but they are shallow; they are grounded in sheer power and not in a demonstration of what is worthy of respect.

Terrorism may be effective in generating fear, but it is shallow in that it does not demonstrate the value of the cause.  Threats of war and war itself may be effective in generating cooperation from other nations, but people who already suspect that the United States is a bully intent upon controlling the Arab world will have their suspicions confirmed.  Those threatened by war may understandably coalesce into an "enemy" in self-defense.   In order to restore our pride, our self-respect and the respect of others, we should ask: Are the values of democracy and freedom made manifest in our actions?  Are we demonstrating the power of law and reason and the importance of the individual?  Or are we simply reacting to a threat in its own terms?  Such concerns may seem naïve when dealing with others who are willing to resort to atrocities.  But even in the face of atrocious criminals we should respond in a way guided by principles that accord them humanity.  The rhetoric of today directs us to prove our power against terrorist "barbarians" and their allies.  Is this not a kind of masculine response?

Of course, to say that it is a "masculine" response is not to say that it is a response that all men will endorse, just as to say that something is feminine is not to say that all women exhibit it.   Nor is it to say that this sort of response is "natural" for men, or is biologically determined in some way.  Quite the contrary.  As we all know, some men are quite feminine, some women masculine.  "Masculinity" and "femininity", as I mean them here, are sets of social norms that men and women are expected to live up to and guide their behavior by: they are the norms that are used to judge us "as men" and "as women".  Not coincidentally, social norms for groups of people tend to "mesh" with the social roles they are expected to play; when internalized, the norms guide us in playing our "proper" roles.  Some traits coded as masculine may be seldom exhibited by anyone, yet still function as an ideal for males.

In their daily lives, men and women are guided by very different social codes and negotiate very different social pressures.  As previously suggested, in a social context where men tend to be more powerful than women and where women are expected to be deferential, women have had to develop different strategies for dealing with wounded pride than men.  It is important to note that not just women employ the strategies I've been casting as "womanly", e.g., both men and women in subordinate positions as well as morally conscientious people throughout history have done so.   Yet it is common to associate strategies employed by the vulnerable with women and to regard the accompanying traits as "feminine" even if they are exhibited by both men and women.  For example, men of color are often regarded as "feminine" because they are vulnerable and so in this respect can be lumped with women.  We should consider whether because those currently in power are men, they resort to masculine strategies even when these are not the most appropriate, and whether what count as "feminine" or "womanly" strategies offer us more valuable resources for building new global alliances.

It may seem ironic that calling for a response that upholds the values of law, reason, and the humanity of each individual is being cast here as more "feminine" than "masculine".  Aren't reason and individualism paradigmatically masculine?  What this inversion demonstrates, I think, is that masculinity and femininity symbolize opposing norms or values, but exactly what values are being opposed depends on context.  How exactly the oppositions shift is complicated, but it appears that masculinity often tracks the mechanisms of power.  In a context where the status quo is secure, the existing hierarchy of social relations is read as reasonable; when the status quo is also male, reason/masculinity governs, and emotion/femininity is the threat that must be controlled.  However, when the status quo is threatened, commonly this calls forth a reassertion of dominance, by force if necessary.  The dominant group’s—so again, typically the masculine—response is not to talk, to consider alternatives, to understand and move beyond the conflict, but to call upon an emotional identification with the status quo to eradicate the threats.  

So under conditions of male dominance, a threat to a nation toggles an ideal of masculinity from the rational man to the passionate patriot.   The rational man is self-interested and weighs long-term consequences and principles carefully before acting.  The patriot puts country before self (so much so that death in battle, or even in a suicide attack, is honorable), the nation before the individual.   Patriots are permitted to sacrifice innocents, override democratic institutions and forego rational debate; it is feminine and “unpatriotic”, then, to consider the individuals who may suffer, the points of view of the "enemy", to govern one's actions by the values of reason, democracy and freedom.  

Of course, we are all capable of a loving or passionate commitment to something larger than ourselves, a commitment entailing hard work and self-sacrifice.  This capacity is a source of much human good.  Traditionally women are expected to make such a commitment to their families, men to their nation, the fatherland.  There are significant differences, however.  Those who structure their lives around their patriotism, e.g., by joining the military, are paid for their efforts and their self-sacrifice is a source of honor and glory.  Those who structure their lives around their families, e.g., stay-home mothers and dads, are unpaid and their self-sacrifice is exploited by all those who benefit from the health and well-being of the next generation.   So again, characteristics that are valued when associated with men and masculinity are devalued when associated with women and femininity, regardless of their real value to society.

However, just as good mothering requires not only love and commitment, but knowledge and thoughtfulness (1),  one might think that responsible patriotism requires a comparable range of capacities and attitudes.  An unthinking patriot—perhaps ignorant, stupid, or enraged, but ready to die for the cause—may of course waste his life and even do his country harm.  Framing masculinity in terms of an opposition between the “rational man” and the “passionate patriot” offers an overly simplistic binary.  Reason and emotion are not at odds but are interdependent in a moral life.

But even in considering a responsible patriot whose virtues may be many, patriotism seems to bring with it an ineliminable element of conservatism that makes it questionable for those who resist the hierarchical status quo.  Nations, still, are masculine entities: they are (mostly) created and ruled by men, they virtually define public space, and their actions are judged by masculine standards.  The patriot is as if the nation’s good son, the protector and inheritor of father-right.  The others, e.g., daughters, younger sons, the disinherited, have an interest in disrupting rather than conserving the dominant structure of nations as we know them.  However, one might argue that the true patriot can despise much about a nation and still love it, still be moved by patriotism: “No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels.  Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.” (2)   And patriotism that defends national integrity in the face of imperialism (cultural, economic, or political) is not only understandable, but often warranted.

And yet, there is an important difference between loving a nation, and loving the values that a nation claims as its own (whether or not it abides by them). (3)  No nation has a monopoly on equality, justice, and freedom, for example.  To love such values, even to love the spirit behind the historical struggle in the United States to safeguard these values, is not, it seems to me, to be an American patriot.  For these values and this struggle are not “ours”, but cross national boundaries and historical eras, and they call upon us to recognize the contingency of nations in forging our deepest commitments. Patriotism in the name of justice and equality for all verges on an oxymoron.  And once patriotism is distinguished from a commitment to a set of values, it is tempting to agree with George Bernard Shaw’s words, “Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.” (4)

There are many things that Americans can be proud of in the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11: the heroism, the compassion, the dedication of so many people.  As I see it, there is nothing intrinsically masculine or feminine about the values we hold dear.  Some things we regard as masculine are good, some not so good; and the same holds for the things we regard as feminine.  I hope there will be a day when it makes no sense to interpret a particular response as masculine or feminine.  But my worry is that the judgments and decisions of our leaders are clouded by gender expectations and gender insecurities, and that in these difficult times a masculine show of force is leading us to betray our own ideals.  Instead, keeping in mind the humanity of even the worst criminals and the goal of a world governed by mutual respect, the United States should take what might ironically be considered in this context the more feminine or womanly approach: rather than resorting to war and violent attempts to destroy the enemy (be they individuals or states), we should rely on international judicial institutions and international human rights law to bring those responsible for terrorism and other crimes against humanity to justice; we should acknowledge our own contributions to global instability and injustice; we should collaborate with other nations to maintain peace and to address the economic basis for so much of the world’s misery.

Are our leaders strong enough to respond to terrorism in a way that might be considered feminine?  To cast an approach as feminine is, typically, to devalue it.  But how we understand both the content and the value of masculinity and femininity can be changed.  Can we refuse the devaluation of women's responses, expose the hollowness of the “tough guy” approach, and find a space where we can affirm justice for all of us—not retaliation, not justice for "us" in the United States—but truly justice for all?


NOTES

(1)  See, e.g., Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989).
(2)  Barbara Ehrenreich, “Family Values,” in The Worst Years of Our Lives (New York: Harper Collins, 1991).
(3)  Martha Nussbaum, “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism,” Boston Review 19:5 (Oct/Nov 1994), and replies.
(4)  The Quotations Page. 1994-2003. Michael Moncur and QuotationsPage.com. 12 July 2003. <http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/George_Bernard_Shaw/11>.