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Abstract
Through a critical analysis of the public discourse surrounding the capture and rescue of Jessica Lynch, this essay investigates how Lynch's body “comes to matter” in political debates regarding women in combat. This article argues that popular representations of Lynch's natural femaleness rearticulate the seemingly biological distinctions between male and female bodies and suggest that women are inherently ill-suited for combat operations. Drawing on the theory of gender performativity, this project explores how Lynch's body becomes marked as innately female by her previous performances of femininity as well as by the norms of military culture, a culture that is always already gendered. In sum, this case study demonstrates how potentially transgressive performances (i.e. women performing the role of masculine soldier) are often recuperated back into a two-sex/gender schema for the purpose of “making sense” of those performances and of institutions that are founded upon the disciplining of gendered bodies.
A version of this essay was presented at the 2005 NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar at the University of Oklahoma and at the 2005 NCA Convention in Boston. It is derived from the author's dissertation (directed by Bonnie J. Dow), which focuses on the gendered discourse operating in and around Operation Iraqi Freedom.
A version of this essay was presented at the 2005 NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar at the University of Oklahoma and at the 2005 NCA Convention in Boston. It is derived from the author's dissertation (directed by Bonnie J. Dow), which focuses on the gendered discourse operating in and around Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Bonnie Dow and Shawn Parry-Giles as well as two anonymous reviewers for their instructive comments.
Notes
A version of this essay was presented at the 2005 NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar at the University of Oklahoma and at the 2005 NCA Convention in Boston. It is derived from the author's dissertation (directed by Bonnie J. Dow), which focuses on the gendered discourse operating in and around Operation Iraqi Freedom.
1. Deepa Kumar, “War Propaganda and the (Ab)uses of Women,” Feminist Media Studies 4, no. 3 (2004): 297–98.
2. Kumar, “War Propaganda,” 297.
3. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990), 30.
4. Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limitations of “Sex” (New York: Routledge, 1993), 30–32; John M. Sloop, Disciplining Gender: Rhetorics of Sex Identity in Contemporary U.S. Culture (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004), 25–29.
5. Butler, Bodies that Matter, 270.
6. Sloop, Disciplining Gender, 30.
7. Butler, Bodies that Matter, 2.
8. Butler, Bodies that Matter, 30.
9. Sloop, Disciplining Gender, 30.
10. Butler, Bodies that Matter, 95.
11. Butler, Gender Trouble, xxii.
12. Terry Goldie, “Dragging Out the Queen: Male Femaling and Male Feminism,” in Revealing Male Bodies, ed. N. Tuana, W. Cowling, M. Hamington, G. Johnson, and T. MacMullen (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 133.
13. John M. Sloop, “Riding in Cars between Men,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 2, no. 3 (2005): 206.
14. Ronald W. Greene, “Another Materialist Rhetoric,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 15 (1998): 31.
15. Judith Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (New York: Routledge, 1997), 103.
16. Cynthia Enloe, “The Gendered Gulf,” in Seeing Through the Media, ed. S. Jeffers and L. Rabinovitz (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1991), 219.
17. Mady Segal, “Women's Military Roles Cross-Nationally: Past, Present, and Future,” Gender and Society 9 (1995): 757–75; Robin Rogers, “A Proposal for Combating Sexual Discrimination in the Military: Amendment of Title VII,” California Law Review 78 (1990): 165–76.
18. Segal “Women's Military Roles,” 761.
19. Madeling Morris, “By Force of Arms: Rape, War, and Military Culture,” Duke Law Journal 45 (1996): 738.
20. Rogers, “A Proposal,” 173–75; Judith DeCew, “The Combat Exclusion and the Role of Women in the Military,” Hypatia 10, no. 1 (1995): 65–71; Kingsley Browne, “Women at War: An Evolutionary Perspective,” Buffalo Law Review 49 (2001): 53–58.
21. Rogers, “A Proposal,” 173.
22. Cynthia Nantais and Martha Lee, “Women in the United States Military: Protectors or Protected? The Case of Prisoner of War Rathbun-Justiny,” Journal of Gender Studies 8, no. 2 (1999): 182.
23. Enloe, “The Gendered Gulf,” 214.
24. Nantais and Lee, “Women in the United States Military,” 184.
25. Ruth Seifert, “War and Rape: A Preliminary Analysis,” in Mass Rape: The War Against Women in Bosnia-Herzegovina, ed. A. Stiglmayer (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 58.
26. Jessica Heslam, “War in Iraq; Family not Surprised by Lynch's heroism,” The Boston Herald, April 4, 2003, 006.
27. Rick Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 24.
28. Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 27.
29. Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 32.
30. Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 14.
31. Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 23.
32. Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 37.
33. Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 37.
34. Diane Sawyer, “Primetime Live Interview with Jessica Lynch: An American Story,” ABC News Transcripts, November 11, 2003, 2.
35. Sawyer, “Primetime Live Interview,” 2.
36. Sawyer, “Primetime Live Interview,” 1.
37. Sawyer, “Primetime Live Interview,” 2.
38. Sawyer, “Primetime Live Interview,” 3.
39. Sawyer, “Primetime Live Interview,” 3.
40. Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 12.
41. Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 68
42. Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 19.
43. Enloe, “The Gendered Gulf,” 214.
44. Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 99.
45. Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 99.
46. Sawyer, “Primetime Live Interview,” 2.
47. Kumar, “War Propaganda and the (Ab)uses of Women,” 297–98.
48. Piestewa died in the Iraqi hospital shortly after the attack, and her body was transported back to the United States after Lynch's rescue. Johnson, who is now petitioning the United States government for additional disability benefits, continues to experience complications after being shot in the foot by a Saddam loyalist.
49. Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 50.
50. Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 50.
51. Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 32.
52. Sawyer, “Primetime Live Interview,” 5.
53. Sawyer, “Primetime Live Interview,” 5.
54. Dana Cloud, “The <Clash of Civilizations> in the Visual Rhetoric of the War on Terrorism,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 90, no. 3 (2004): 286.
55. For more discussion on Western logocentrism and the essentialist construction of subaltern communities see Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” in The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, ed. B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths, and H. Tiffin (London: Routledge, 1995), 24–28.
56. Using the Lexis-Nexis database, I gathered all of the national newspaper articles published in the past year that discuss Lynch's story in relationship to feminism. This section examines fifty-three articles including articles printed in the editorial and opinion sections of major U.S. newspapers.
57. Jay Bookman, “Limbaugh Strikes Blows He Can't Take,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 2, 2004, 9A.
58. Bookman, “Limbaugh Strikes,” 9A.
59. Magarette Driscoll, “Frontline Kate Lays Down a Heavy Fire on Women Soldiers,” Sunday Times, September 7, 2004, 9.
60. Driscoll, “Frontline Kate,” 9.
61. Betsy Hart, “Lynch Shows Pitfalls of Women in Combat,” Chicago Sun-Times, September 7, 2003, 32.
62. Hart, “Lynch Shows Pitfalls,” 32.
63. Elaine Donnelly, “Women Soldiers Serving at Greater Risk,” San Diego Union-Tribune, April 27, 2003, G6. Donnelly is a member of the 1992 Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces and is president of the Center for Military Readiness.
64. Donnelly, “Women Serving,” G6.
65. Kathleen Parker, “Lynch: Soldier or Girlie-girl?,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 19, 2003, 21.
66. Parker, “Lynch: Soldier or Girlie-girl?,” 21.
67. Parker, “Lynch: Soldier or Girlie-girl?,” 21.
68. Neal Justin, “The TV Dramatizations ‘Saving Jessica Lynch’ and ‘The Elizabeth Smart Story’ are Based More on Old-fashioned Notions than Real Life,” Star Tribune, November 7, 2004, 23E.
69. Justin, “TV Dramatizations,” 23E.
70. Sloop, Disciplining Gender, 48–49.
71. Greene, “Another Materialist Rhetoric,” 30–32.
72. Greene, “Another Materialist Rhetoric,” 25.