The “Double-Battle”: women combatants and their embodied experiences in war zones

Harel-Shalev, Ayelet; Daphna–Tekoah, Shir

doi:10.1080/17539153.2016.1178484

Cited by 22 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…However, in our study, similar to previous studies regarding the reality of security threats and intractable conflicts (Bar‐Tal ; Halperin, Bar‐Tal, Sharvit, Rosler, & Raviv, ; Kriesberg ), the combatants focused mainly on the traumas of their own “side” of the conflict and did not focus on moral objection. Although the combatants expressed some empathy with the Palestinians (Harel‐Shalev & Daphna‐Tekoah, , ), similar to other studies on wars and military occupations, they—as “recipients of armed violence, victims of attacks, rather than aggressors in an invasionary expedition” (Woodward & Jenkings, , p. 157)—tended to focus on “their own” soldiers' injuries in their narratives of war . Our findings emphasize that not only women who as the victims of war may experience trauma; women combatants and women in combat support roles, who are actively involved in both offensive and defensive military operations and are caught within traumatic circumstances in which they are forced to endanger their lives, experience trauma as they witness serious injury, violence, and death and participate in combat with all that it entails.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

“…Critical studies on security and trauma would suggest that women combatants and veterans who have requested assignments in war zones and have participated in various conflicts and ethno‐national struggles deserve much greater attention in the research of trauma. War is the most radically embodying event (McSorley, ; Scarry, ), one of the central aims of war and combat being injury to the opponent's body, while protecting one's own (Harel‐Shalev & Daphna‐Tekoah, ). Nevertheless, to date, studies of war trauma have concentrated mostly on the psychological symptoms of distress, rather than on integrating bodily manifestations of traumatic war experiences with the mental impact of war and armed conflicts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This research follows the recommendation of a number of psychology studies claiming that in the study of trauma, the body deserves more attention than has so far been awarded to it (Jensen & Wrisberg, ; Scaer, ; van der Kolk, McFarlane, & Weisaeth, ). In parallel, recent critical security studies suggest that the body should not be excluded from the study of international relations and that studies of the experiences of both women and men in the context of conflict and war should center on the embodied person, that is, on what happens to the person's body and how the body functions in conflict zones (e.g., Åhäll, ; Harel‐Shalev, & Daphna‐Tekoah, ; Höpfl, ; McSorley, ; Parashar, ; Sylvester, ; Wilcox, ). Recent trauma studies have therefore emphasized the importance of integrating physical and mental manifestations of trauma (Dorahy & van der Hart, ), including trauma in the military context (Nash, ; Russell & Figley, , p. 4; Scaer, , p. xvi), but none has related to women combatants and their bodies.…”

Section: Trauma Combat and The Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since women and women's bodies are being marginalized, disadvantaged, and made insecure within existing gendered power structures (Hoogensen & Rottem, ), including the military, one might ask—where are women and women's bodies in the process of making war? (Harel‐Shalev & Daphna‐Tekoah, ; McEvoy, ; Parashar, ). The body is therefore politically important.…”

Section: Trauma Combat and The Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since women combatants are exposed to risks and experiences that are similar to those of their fellow men combatants in conflict zones, the current study proposes to examine an additional perspective on the trauma of women—one that focuses on assertive, competent women who have, by the very nature of their roles in the military, experienced traumatic events. The women cope with these events while struggling to integrate into a male‐dominant hierarchic organization and trying to prove themselves worthy in a masculine environment (Harel‐Shalev & Daphna‐Tekoah, ; Sasson‐Levy, ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Politics of Trauma Studies: What Can We Learn From Women Combatants' Experiences of Traumatic Events in Conflict Zones?

Daphna–Tekoah

Harel-Shalev

2016

Political Psychology

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Ayelet Harel-Shalev Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Wars, combat, and political developments triggered the study of trauma. Knowledge about trauma initially emerged from the experiences of men combatants in the battlefield. At a later stage, the study of trauma focused on women and children subject to violence and abuse. The current research suggests that additional aspects of trauma can be understood through the study of competent women exposed to traumatic events and not merely as victims of war or abuse. The study offers an analysis of women combatants' narratives of their exposure to traumatic events in conflict zones. Data were obtained from two focus groups and a series of 30 personal interviews of women veterans who served in the IDF. Interviewing women combat soldiers revealed a variety of narratives of their war experiences, including the intertwining of the emotional and the physical. The window to understanding the trauma was opened by analysis of the responses of the women combatants to potentially traumatic events rather than by focusing on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) per se. We emphasize the need for a critical perspective in the study of trauma and combat trauma and propose that there is value in engaging with and listening to diverse narratives of trauma.KEY WORDS: women combatants, trauma, body, armed conflicts, war, feminist IR "I remember I didn't feel a thing. I had to pee before that, and when they brought the dead bodies and the wounded soldiers, I didn't feel anything. I didn't think about anything. I didn't have to pee anymore. I didn't feel that heaviness that I had before. I felt a mixture of stuff, and there was the smell. I remember the smell. I smell it now. I imagine a burnt smell, when hair is burned, like plastic. A burned body has a weird smell of burned plastic. It's not like a bonfire, it's that sort of smell. . .. I smelled it only from bodies. I remember I didn't feel a thing afterwards. One of the combat men soldiers puked and another one was nauseous. I ignored it and kept on doing stuff, taking care of them, like it wasn't a part of my life. This interview with you is the first time I'm telling about the bodies, like it's not a part of my life right now. (Scurfield, 2009;Turnbull, 1998) and its aftermath emerged from the emotional experiences and combat distress of men combatants (Finkelhor, Shattuck, Turner, & Hamby, 2014;Freud, 1920Freud, /2011. This research was later complemented by studies of the trauma of women and children as abused victims (Brownmiller, 1975;Walker, 1993). Current knowledge about trauma, therefore, stems from studies on combat men and victim women. In this context, we suggest that hegemonic masculinity influences the study of trauma, just as it influences and reinforces everyday practices of gendered identities (Kronsell, 2006, 109).Judith Herman, in her seminal work on " Trauma and Recovery" (1992), held that the systematic study of psychological trauma was initiated as a result of the evolvement of political movements and political ...

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