Protecting the Motherland: Women's Agency in Transforming National Identity

Abstract

The nation is most often imagined as a woman, and in fact born of a woman, whereas the state is almost always male. In Latin, 'nation' is a feminine word, while 'state' is masculine. The nation is wild, apolitical, and primitive. The state is organized and cultivatedwithin the limits of reason and law. This feminization has created representations of the nation as one 'under threat and sexual danger, and construes invasion or colonization as male heterosexual rape', as in 'the rape of Kuwait'a male hero and female victim (Pettman 1998:157). Furthermore, all agency is in the hands of the masculine state: 'women are the symbol of the nation, men its agents' (McClintock 1993:1). Men must protect the women, children, home, and land -'the motherland'.There are vastly different ideas of how men and women sacrifice for the country: men march into battle with agency and patriotism, while the woman 'woefully, but willingly, offers up her children (sons) to battle' (Nagel and Feitz 2007:39). During war, women 'become the guardians of cradles and coffins' (Afshar 2003:183), while their husbands, brothers, and fathers perish protecting them from the enemy, or the 'other' by race, religion, or ideology. Women are used as the moral justification for entering into conflict, and are 'sources of emotional, physical, and sexual comfort for men at war' (Nagel and Feitz 2007:39), who are undertaking the true task of protecting the motherland. The space that women occupy in this system is to populate the nation and teach nationalist identities and roles to the children.The spatial boundaries created within the gendered idea of states and nations have permeated society for millennia. 'Women are forever caught between the symbolic uses different national projects make of them, and the ways in which * Amanda Sztein is a second-year M.A. candidate at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) focusing on Latin American Studies, international finance, and emerging markets. She has previously worked for the World Bank, the Cefeidas Group in Buenos Aires, and Theater Delta, an interactive theatre company that seeks to create social change via improvisational and participatory performances. Prior to SAIS, Amanda earned a B.A. in Economics and Contemporary European Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she completed capstone projects on mega-sport events and human rights. Upon graduation from SAIS, she plans to pursue a career in international relations.