The most comprehensive compilation of scattered anthropological findings on war and gender comes from political scientist Joshua Goldstein. This paper is one step toward addressing that gap, combining my own research with other relevant observations I could find. For a course I teach on the anthropology of war, I found no general reading to assign. Gutmann’s ( 1997) broad review of the anthropological literature found practically nothing addressing masculinity and war. Within anthropology, the typically male character of war is implicit, a given. Focus on masculinity itself is secondary to the focus on women. Much research related to this essential has raised the contradictions, the nonconforming women in war (DePauw 2000 Elshtain 1995 Enloe 1983). War is a male practice, one of those obvious gender dichotomies that turns out to be not so binary. Finally addressed is why nonwar killing is typically by men. The next section considers contemporary variations on military masculinities and their harmful impact on women. Ethnographic cases and ethnological statistics show that socialization for military masculinity is pervasive in war-making societies but variable in what masculinity means, and if and how women participate in war. Masculinity is culturally antecedent to war but is exapted for combat when war is present, and then powerfully shapes and is shaped by war.
A sex-based division of labor leads to socially defined men’s work, which fosters masculine personalities. Earlier cross-cultural insight into gender-based role segregation is incorporated into a cultural materialist framework, addressed to both the commonality that war is male and to the many exceptions and variations. Claimed support from study of chimpanzees, archaeology, and mobile foragers is challenged, supporting the conclusion that war is a relatively recent development in our species. Why is war so closely associated with men? Is it an expression of male nature or a product of culture? This survey of masculinity and war considers the proposition that men are predisposed to kill male outsiders, which led to war throughout our species’ evolutionary history and selected for additional gender characteristics.
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