Reviews for Innocent Women and Children: Gender Norms and the Protection of Civilians

The average rating for Innocent Women and Children: Gender Norms and the Protection of Civilians based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-10-19 00:00:00 Sandra Sullivan "Innocent Women and Children" posits the idea that the international community's emphasis on the vulnerability and, indeed, lack of agency, of women and children ignored the very real danger that men and older boys experience in conflict zones. When aid organizations and activist groups push for humanitarian intervention, either by military or monetary means, they frequently make appeals to voters' and donor's consciences by describing the plight of women and children. Sometimes this takes the form of "x number of people were killed, including y many women and z many children." The implication, in these scenarios, is that somehow the killing of women and children is worse than the killing of men. Dr. Carpenter's argument is that we have become conditioned to think that men can and should take care of themselves and that men and older boys are all one AK-47 away from becoming combatants, whereas women and children are inherently not capable of taking up arms. This, of course, completely ignores the roles of women in modern militaries (the IDF and female Kurdish fighters in Syria being very visible examples), and the very real problem of child soldiers. She presents a couple case studies - Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia - in which this disregard for men as potential victims of war led to aid organizations evacuating women, children, and the elderly, and leaving men and older boys behind to be massacred. The Geneva Conventions are very clear. Age and gender are irrelevant in determining whether someone is a combatant. An ex-Navy SEAL, as long as he doesn't take up arms, is a non-combatant and should be treated as such. However, there is a perception that this isn't the case and that such a person is a constant threat and as such is a legitimate military target. Belligerents are able to legitimize their actions by showing that they evacuate women and children from the battlefield, and use these actions to help stave off international intervention. I find Dr. Carpenter's arguments convincing because, as a former board member of a non-profit dedicated to fighting human trafficking, I can confirm that everyone is very concerned about the sexual exploitation of women and children, but few people are concerned about men being trafficked as laborers. Of course, Dr. Carpenter acknowledges that women and children face different vulnerabilities. They are more vulnerable to sexual assault and exploitation (though men are also sexually assaulted in war zones), and also to malnutrition and disease after the bulk of the fighting is done. Small children and pregnant women are, of course uniquely vulnerable for medical reasons, but older children and women who are not pregnant are not especially vulnerable to starvation, it's just that by that point men are not around, having died in the fighting. Her primary argument is that if the chief concern is who dies, then, because men are more likely to be targeted during fighting, they are the most vulnerable and thus should receive significantly more attention from the aid community.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-11-17 00:00:00 Kimberly Munoz Overall I felt this title gave some interesting views as to the challenges of warfare in the future, with some of Coker's fortes (ethics and war in particular) shining through. However, I felt that the title was perhaps not a prescriptive as others in the field in describing what warfare in the future may look like. In comparison to other titles however, this is not necessarily a bad thing - a number of authors fall into the trap of looking at popular technology, and defining that as how the world will be shaped in the future (e.g. Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century). As a result, they lose their ability to retain currency within a few years of publication as projects change and the global security picture shifts due to political paradigms. Coker's writing style is also a little difficult at times to approach - sometimes it comes up as very academic, others an approachable academic, and sometimes in the popular style of books such as Singer's. As a result, it is approachable for a wide variety of audiences. I was given this book as an advance review copy, but have yet to receive a follow-up to check against.