Agency and Militarization in the Heartland: Noncombatant American Women

Abstract

Feminist analyses of war, militarism, security, and international relations have expanded greatly since the escalation of the “war on terror.” This case study builds on feminist scholarship about the gendering of war by investigating the militarization of noncombatant women living in a small Midwestern town in the United States that I call “Harvestville,” where I spent over two years analyzing women’s lives in a Midwestern nonwar zone, nonmilitary base, nondefense contractor town. Harvestville presented a rich study opportunity because, lacking the more conventional and overt forms of militarization one might notice in, for instance, the United States Army post in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, or in Hartford, Connecticut, with its major defense-contracting companies. Militarization throws into sharper relief the roles played by patriarchal traditions of this onetime pioneer town that has been, and continues to be a nucleus for mostly white, heterosexual, middle class, Christian, two-parent families. This is the same American demographic group that, since the September 11, 2001 attacks, our civilian policymakers have relied upon to accept and support the principles of the government’s “war on terrorism.”