Men, Militarism, and UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis

Whitworth (political science and women's studies, York U., Canada) offers a feminist critique of UN peacekeeping missions, arguing the politics of peacekeeping is often ignored in celebrations of their allegedly humanitarian motivations. She provides studies of missions in Cambodia and Somalia in the 1990s, paying particular attention to the impact of missions on the lives of local people. She also argues that the most aggressive elements of masculinity is reinforced in forming the identity of soldiers, making them particularly unsuitable for peacekeeping missions. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR