One of the Guys Women as Aggressors and Torturers

by McKelvey, Tara; Ehrenreich, Barbara

• ISBN13: 9781580051965
• ISBN10: 1580051960
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-01-18
• Publisher: Seal Press

Summary

The debate about women and torture has, until recently, focused on women as victims of violence. But when photographs were released from the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal, one featured Lynndie England holding a prisoner by a dog leash. Overnight, she became a symbol of women's capacity to inflict pain and suffering-and soon, many in America were questioning why the infliction of violence has always been seen as inherently male. One of the Guys deals specifically with this issue. 

In her foreword, Barbara Ehrenreich wonders why she once assumed women possessed an innate aversion to violence. Her essay then serves as a launching point for the rest of the contributors, which include academics, journalists, and activists, each grappling with women's involvement in torture and the abuse of power.

The essays in One of the Guys challenge and examine the expectations placed on women while attempting to understand female perpetrators of abuse and torture in a broader context.

Author Biography

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of fourteen books, including the bestselling Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. She lives in Virginia.

Table of Contents

Foreword : feminism's assumptions upended	p. 1
Introduction	p. 7
I still don't get how you could put a leash on a human being	p. 17
Sexual coercion, prisons, and female responses	p. 23
Why did Jennifer Scala bring Cunt into the courtroom?	p. 29
Split screens	p. 37
The women of Abu Ghraib	p. 45
The misogynist implications of Abu Ghraib	p. 51
Shock and awe : Abu Ghraib, women soldiers, and racially gendered torture	p. 57
Gender and sexual violence in the military	p. 81
Women soldiers and interrogational abuses in the war on terror	p. 91
Women and the profession of arms	p. 97
Guarding women : Abu Ghraib and military sexual culture	p. 111
Bitter fruit : constitutional gender equality comes to the military	p. 125
Photography/pornography/torture : the politics of seeing Abu Ghraib	p. 135
Gender trouble at Abu Ghraib?	p. 145
Is that the pose of a liberated woman?	p. 167
Feminism as imperialism	p. 171
The "sex interrogators" of Guantanamo	p. 175
Women in the interrogation room	p. 179
Women's role in mob violence : lynchings and Abu Ghraib	p. 189
Pawn, scapegoat, or collaborator? : U.S. military women and detainee abuse in Iraq	p. 199
Lynndie England in love	p. 213
The military made me do it : double standards and psychic injuries at Abhu Ghraib	p. 217
Afterword	p. 229
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.