Elshtain's Role In The Militarization Of Women

Contrary to the dominant narrative that portrays women as victims of war and genocide, women have played a vital role in the participation of these atrocities, ranging across region, time, and event. Beginning in the 1990’s, with a rise in feminist and gender theory, historians have become interested in studying women’s roles in war, not only as victims of violence, but also as perpetrators. One of these watershed moments in this study was Jean Bethke Elshtain’s Women and War, which argued that women for centuries have involved themselves in the militarization of nations and violence. Elshtain is a social philosopher who has dramatically influenced the humanities with her contribution to challenging gender stereotypes. While Elshtain’s book
focuses on modern Western societies, other historians have adapted her approach to other regions and times in history. Following the Rwandan genocide, where an entire society engaged in violence, this approach became examined in genocide history. Similarly, historians of twentieth-century Europe have investigated the role of women in violence. Books such as Wendy Lower’s 2013 Hitler’s Furies look at German women as agents of genocide in Eastern Europe. Along with this narrative, Jan Gross’ 2001 Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, forces historians to re-investigate how and who conducts genocide. Gross argues that Polish civilians needed little encouragement to assist and participate in the murder of their Jewish neighbors. These works identify the lost history of women perpetrators in wartime and genocide, while further illustrating how this history contributes to the greater understanding of gender and violence.
From the years 1914-1923 in the midst of the First World War, the Ottoman Empire conducted one of the century's first genocide campaigns. Within the context of war, the Turkish military systematically killed between 800,000-1.5 million individuals. The disintegrating Ottoman Empire combined with the rise in the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) or commonly known as the Young Turk regime, focused on an ethnically homogeneous nation building campaign culminating in the liquidation of the Armenian population and other Christian minority groups. Members of the CUP assigned military commanders to carry out the Armenian genocide. Although the Young Turk government took precautions and imposed restrictions on reporting and photographing the events, there were lots of foreigners in the Ottoman Empire who witnessed the deportations. Through a reading of these testimonies, I hope to pull out information that discusses women's involvement in this genocide.
For my project, I am interested in researching how Turkish women aided, encouraged, and participated in the Armenian genocide. Historians such as Gross, Lower, and Elshtain force us to reconsider the actions of individuals not classified as military, government officials, or in the Armenian situation gendarme. Genocide historians have explored in depth, female perpetrators in the Holocaust and Rwanda, however, the Armenian genocide lacks critical research on this topic. The Armenian genocide and conceptions of gender are entrenched in this event. This is due to the deliberate, separate treatment of the sexes. Men, of battle age, were the first to be liquidated- often by shooting- followed by women, predominantly killed in death marches via dehydration, mass rape, and starvation. Yet, despite this gendered construction of the Armenian genocide, little research has looked at Turkish women as perpetrators. By looking through a gender theory lens, I seek to address two main questions. How did Turkish women contribute to the systematic killings, redistribution of Armenian children, and the death marches that comprised the genocide? Would those who adopted Armenian children, assimilating them into Muslim culture also constitute perpetrators of genocide? This question is in the context the UN Genocide definition clause 4: forcibly transferring children of the targeted group to another group. Finally, I ask how traditional gender roles within Turkey have made these women invisible in the dominant narrative. What happened to these women in the post-genocide state? Were women who were witnesses, accomplices, and perpetrators identified and punished in a post-genocide setting? How were they viewed by their community, international actors, and if applicable, the international court system? How are these women remembered in the national memory of Armenian genocide?
This research offers scholars an opportunity to understand further women as perpetrators of violence. Because the female voice is often unaddressed, dismissed, or assumed in gendered constructions, this history has disappeared. Further, by addressing female perpetrators and what their involvement included, this work adds to our understanding of the rountiness of genocide; I seek to answer how ordinary individuals add to the destruction of a group of people. This research will contribute to not only our understanding of the Armenian case but other genocides in history. The Armenian genocide continues to be debated, disputed, and in some sense, swept under the rug in counties such as Turkey. Yet, this adamant denial of the genocide continues to encourage research on the event. This study hopes to unveil a deeper understanding of this genocide and how women assisted in the destruction of the Armenians.

Historiography:

My historiography engages with two themes. These themes include looking at other genocides and women’s involvement, and second, the Ottoman experience of war. The second group of historians asks how and why Armenians suddenly became a problem in the Ottoman Empire.
The first set of historiography reflect on women perpetrators in other genocides, women in war, and women within immoral societies, these resources will be essential for the mechanics of my thesis. Jean Bethke Elshtain’s 1987, Women and War is one of the first books of international relations focusing on gender that looked to challenge stereotypes of men and women's violence. While the author's primary focus is on war, the second part of her book sets to dismantle the prevailing discourses associated with war; she primarily focuses on the false dichotomy that labels women as nurturing and loving and men as bloodthirsty and inherently violent. Elshtain is a social philosopher that uses a combination of political history and gender theory to make her argument. Her sources include autobiographies, literature, film, and popular culture, which she uses to understand the public discourse on wartime atrocities and the societal roles assigned to each gender. This book stresses the fluidity of men and women's roles in war societies and settings. Within the parallel of war and genocide, Elshtain’s work is critical to dismantling the preconceived gender roles attributed to individuals in my topic of Turkish women perpetrators in the Armenian genocide. She is one of the first to advocate the breaking of the gendered myths that continue to dictate our understanding of war and violence. Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, further adds to the historiography by debunking who perpetrates genocide. Jan Gross’ 2001 study looks at the town of Jedwabne, Poland where 1,600 Jews were murdered, and argues that the Polish population aided in their destruction. Historiography of the Holocaust tends to view the Nazis and the Soviets as the prime decision makers in the killings within Poland. However, Gross emphasizes the autonomy of individuals actors within the political sphere of Nazi and Soviet control. While Gross’ sources are limited (something that he acknowledges) he does offer compelling methodological tools for facilitating research of this sort. He focuses on Soviet court cases such as Lomza District Court in prosecutions against 22 men between 1949 and 1953, which reveal testimony that participants in the community. This research complements work like Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men, which also argues that “ordinary” members of society can engage in genocide.
Moreover, analyzing German nurses, wives, and secretaries, that participated, witnessed, and facilitated in the systematic genocide of Eastern European Jews, Wendy Lower’s 2013, Hitler's Furies contributes to the historiography by looking at German women as agents in genocide.
Through previously untouched German files in Ukraine and Poland, Lower reveals a world of female perpetrators previously unknown, or unimagined. Her research challenges our gendered understanding of women's ability to commit sadistic atrocities and further to engage and encourage violence. Another critical aspect Lower demonstrates, is the various reasons for women's engagement in violence. Her research illustrates the mundane, routine, work ranging from desk work, to nursing that build to create the inner workings of the Holocaust. Lower uses case studies of thirteen women and gives detailed backgrounds of each. By keeping her case studies small, she demonstrates the ordinariness of these women. Young, driven girls, coming from ordinary homes that contributed to the killings of Eastern European Jews. Lower provides an essential platform for my proposal while also illustrating a methodological approach and sources that could be of use. These sources include documents such as journals, witness testimonies, and court files. In her methodology, Lower specifically focuses on women in each source. The author uses a type of subaltern approach to reveal details of women that were previously dismissed due to gendered assumptions that suggest women are unable to contribute to violence. Further, by legitimation occupational positions in the Third Reich such as typist, nurses, and wives as active members in the genocide campaign, Lower reveals how each case study helped the Nazis in their destruction of the Jews. Each of Lower’s source types can be applied to locating sources for my research within the Armenian
genocide.
Finally, in more recent work, Laura Sjoberg, in a study of women as wartime rapists, uses various case studies to illustrate that women perpetrators of genocide are and were capable of genocidal sexual violence. In Women as Wartime Rapists, Sjoberg provides one chapter on different genocide case studies, where she illustrates women in the Armenian genocide, which will prove to be helpful in this research. By using testimonies from living survivors, she demonstrates how women became involved in beatings, killings, sexual violence, and assisting in the genocide. These actions include selling Armenian girls into sexual slavery and using orphaned girls as sexual brides for Turkish men. This chapter emphasizes that women perpetrators did not demonstrate sensitivity or more non-violent tendencies than men. Despite this, women perpetrators are not viewed in the same light as men, often their actions excused, or dismissed as abnormal behavior (a concept highlighted further in Lower’s Hitler’s Furies). While Sjoberg provides only a small section on the Armenian genocide, the sources she uses offer additional guidance research. These sources focus predominantly on oral histories, however, by providing more precise historical methodologies, more questions for my research can be discovered. Outside of the chapter focused on genocide, Sjoberg's thesis is to show that women throughout history have demonstrated the ability to kill, rape, and commit atrocities alongside their male counterparts.
These books highlight the importance in my work in defining women as perpetrators in crimes of war and genocide. However, research done on Turkish women in the Armenian genocide lacks. I hope to address this lack of research in my study; yet, this research has implications outside of filling in a missing section of history. Through my engagement with historiography focused on the Ottoman experience of the war and genocide, I hope to reveal how scholars understand why the genocide occurred and how it engaged with the Ottoman society as a whole.