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

ABSTRACT

Our study contributes to the ongoing debate about women in combat by exploring women combatants’ experiences of war through interviews with women soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces who served as combatants or in combat-support roles in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. We proffer that the bodily experiences of women combatants disturb conventional international relations and hegemonic masculine war metanarratives that either abstract or glorify combat. These otherwise silenced narratives reveal juxtapositions of feelings of competence and vulnerability and shed light on the women’s struggle for gender integration in the military. We conclude the article with a reflection on the challenges facing researchers investigating war and terrorism.

KEYWORDS:

• War
• women combatants
• terrorism
• occupied territories
• embodied experiences
• feminist IR
• body

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For attempts to define terrorism or terrorists, see Ramsay (2015).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation [grant no. 160/15] and by the Ashkelon Academic College, Israel.

Notes on contributors

Ayelet Harel-Shalev

Ayelet Harel-Shalev is a lecturer at the Conflict Management and Resolution Program and The Department of Politics and Government, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Harel-Shalev is the author of The Challenge of Democracy: Citizenship, Rights, and Ethnic Conflicts in India and Israel (2013, Cambridge University Press and Foundation Books, India). Her academic interests include Feminist IR, Women Combatants, Ethnic Conflicts and Democracy, Minority Rights, and Religion, Gender and Politics. Her recent publications include (with Shir Daphna-Tekoah) “Bringing Women’s Voices Back In: Conducting Narrative Analysis in IR” (International Studies Review, 2016).

Shir Daphna-Tekoah

Shir Daphna-Tekoah is a senior lecturer at the School of Social Work in the Ashkelon Academic College, Israel, and a researcher at the Social Work Department, Kaplan Medical Center. Her recent publications include “Living in a Movie – Women Combatants in Conflict Zones” (Women's Studies International Forum, 2014), and “Gendering Conflict Analysis – Analyzing Israeli Female Combatants' Experiences” (in S. Shekhawat, (ed.), Female Combatants in Conflict and Peace, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), both co-authored with Ayelet Harel-Shalev. Her academic interests include Gender, Health and Violence, Women Combatants, Child Abuse and Neglect, Dissociation and Trauma.