CHAPTER 29
Gender and Visual Representations
of Women Combatants
Chava Brownfield-Stein
INTRODUCTION: PHOTOGRAPHY, WAR
AND
GENDER
Photographs are sites where conflicts are played out and cultural negotiations
take place. According to Sontag (1990), photography is captured between two
regimes and two discourses: a truth regime or discourse of truth, on one hand,
and an art regime or aesthetic discourse, on the other. For Tagg (2009),
photography is an instrument of surveillance, an apparatus of administration,
with the camera an instrument of capturing. Tagg (2012) states that it is the
contemporary subject (rather than an image), that is captured as the product of
conflictual relations, between and among beings and apparatuses. This chapter
on gender and visual representations of women combatants focuses on the
intersection between photography, the contemporary subject and war, and
provides a gateway to thinking about gender and military issues from a visual
perspective. After a brief discussion about the complicated relations between
photography, gender and war, the chapter looks in-depth at three specific
examples of images and the issues they raise. The discussion concentrates
exclusively on photographs of women combatants. The terms of production
and distribution of the three photographs differ from one photograph to
another, but all share similar sites of audience. The internet is their common
habitat. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how photography mediates
women’s participation in combat roles.
In 1855, Roger Fenton, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s portrait photographer, was persuaded to travel to the Crimea peninsula and shoot some war
scenes. From early March to late June, one photographer, two assistants, a horse
and a van produced around 360 well-orchestrated, carefully set photo prints,
recording soldiers, military camps and war activities. The military emerged at its
C. Brownfield-Stein (*)
Beit Berl College, Kfar Saba, Israel
e-mail: mccabs@gmail.com
© The Author(s) 2017
R. Woodward, C. Duncanson (eds.), The Palgrave International Handbook
of Gender and the Military, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-51677-0_29
475
476
C. BROWNFIELD-STEIN
best from these photographs, just as required. The widely scoped work of the
photographer, endorsed by the British monarchy, commissioned by the British
Parliament and financially supported by a commercial publishing house, was one of
the first embodiments of the complex relations between photography on the one
hand and war, propaganda, entertainment, capital and government on the other.
Since then, the history of wars, capitalism and photographic apparatuses have
been mutually constitutive. We recognize the nature of wars through their visual
and verbal representations, and with the mediation of political, commercial and
optic lenses. Fenton’s all-too-fetching photographs constitute the first stage in
the aestheticization, commercialization, naturalization and de-familiarization of
wars through the use of photographic apparatus. Moreover, his photographs
present just one aspect of the political uses and power relations around photography played out to this day by means of visual representations. Simultaneously,
they have also served as the starting point for war photography to become a
journalistic practice through photojournalism.
Over a decade ago, Campbell (2003) claimed that ‘Despite living in an age
commonly understood as being awash with images of wars and atrocity, there are
few writers who theorize the relationship between political conflict and its pictorial representation’ (Campbell, 2003, p.1). Since then, a great number of studies
have engaged with theoretical and critical writing on visual images and violent
conflicts. Numerous researchers have explored the manipulating tendencies of
global political–military–media networks. Zelizer (2004) notes that war itself has
become a media spectacle, while the public as spectators have become an integral
part of armed conflicts. Griffin (2010) points to a constant pattern of government
and media collaboration, while Campbell and Shapiro (2007) discuss the procedures through which visual images are involved in military practices, and how
(war) narratives are visually constructed, presented and justified. Sliwinski (2011)
explores the relations between visual apparatuses, modes of production, distribution and consumption, and the interaction of photography, political conflicts and
human rights. Keith (2010) compares war images across media platforms, while
Schwalbe (2015) focuses on the visual coverage of the 2006 Lebanon War. Most
of these studies deal with images of male soldiers. Only a handful of studies focus
on photographs from the perspective of women soldiers. The present study is
exceptional in that rule.
Heck and Schlag (2012) cite the debate in the USA about how images are
(ab)used in order to legitimize the ongoing war in Afghanistan, focusing on the
political and ethical dimension. They describe how gender and the (female) body
are visually securitized. Masters (2009) examines how US female soldiers and the
‘veil women’ have been represented in the ‘war on/of terror’ as either Madonnas
or whores, and Ette (2013) focuses on the British press coverage of women
soldiers killed in Iraq (see also Millar, Chapter 33, this volume). Studies on visual
representations of Israeli Defense Force (IDF) women soldiers are even fewer,
and although the examples that follow come from the Israeli context, with IDF
providing examples, they raise some more general and widely applicable issues
around the representations of women military personnel.
GENDER AND VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN COMBATANTS
477
Researchers have focused on the duality of representations of women soldiers as mothers\lovers, or as wives\fighters. Berger and Naaman (2011) have
studied photographs of Israeli women soldiers in the press since the 2006 war
in Lebanon. They describe the fact that most images of women soldiers
represent a masculine gaze that holds them as ‘combat cuties’.1 In my own
work on visual representations of IDF women and ‘civil-militarism’ in Israel
(Brownfield-Stein, 2010), I explore photographs of IDF women soldiers noting that their images helped to cement the militaristic character of Israeli
society. I use the term ‘erotic militarism’ to describe this (Brownfield-Stein,
2012). I point to the way that photographs of IDF women soldiers straddle
pairs of dialectical representational systems. These include documentary and
voyeurism, soldierhood and motherhood, soldierhood and femininity, active
body and passive body, camouflage and makeup, ‘docile bodies’ and ‘erotic
bodies’, and the nation-state as a big family and family as a miniature state. In
the remainder of this chapter, I explore pairs of dialectical representational
systems, focusing on documentary and voyeurism, soldierhood and femininity,
and the active body and the passive body.
MEDIATING WOMEN’S MILITARY PARTICIPATION:
THREE PHOTOGRAPHS
Three visual representations of women combatants feature at the core of this
chapter.2 All three have garnered wide publicity, and have been the focus of
lively discussions pertaining to militaries and women. They offer different faces
of female soldiering. The photographs were taken in specific places as part of
local events, but are embedded in an international context and hold a broad
social significance in the global cultural context. The cultural–social events that
formed the background to their publication – year-end summaries and
Mother’s Day – are common to Western culture at large. The presence of
photographers at these events points to the importance of visual images in
contemporary culture. The terms of production and distribution of the three
photographs differ from one photo to another, but all share similar sites of
audience. The internet is their common ‘habitat’.
Throughout October 2014, the photograph of a Kurdish female fighter,
flashing a V-for-victory sign, went viral on social media. Commonly known by
the pseudonym ‘Rehana’, the woman was credited with killing 100 Islamic
State fighters. ‘The online legend of smiling Rehana’ has also been referred to
as ‘the Angel of Kobane’ or ‘The poster girl for Kurdish freedom’ (Hall
2014).3 Rehana is a member of the Independent Women’s Battalion,
Yekineyen Parastina Jin (YPJ), or Women Protection Units. The YPJ were
pronounced by CNN in December as the ‘leading women of 2014 and most
inspiring women of 2014’ (CNN 2014a).
That same month, as reported by Ynet (2014), a photograph of an IDF
woman soldier was elected by Reuters as one of its ‘Best Photos of the Year
2014’.4 The photograph of a woman combatant, her face camouflage-painted,
478
C. BROWNFIELD-STEIN
was published on 30 May, 2014.5 It was taken by Reuters’ photographer
Cohen (2014), and featured as part of a photo essay about IDF women soldiers
during their final training mission, undertaken before their official induction
into the mixed-gender Caracal Battalion.6
The third photograph I consider in this chapter was taken for Mother’s Day
2015. For the occasion, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) posted the photograph of
an IAF combat pilot, breastfeeding her child (IAF Facebook 2015). The
photograph circulated in Israel’s local print and electronic media.7 Under the
English title of ‘Happy Mother’s Day’, it gained thousands of ‘likes’ and
‘shares’ throughout the web.
Discussion in this chapter focuses exclusively on photographs of women
combatants. There is no shortage of photographs of Israeli and Kurdish women
in this category, wearing uniforms, running in full combat gear, carrying a
comrade on a stretcher or applying camouflage paint on their faces. However,
these three photographs became the focus of local and international media
attention, gained wide publicity on the internet and became viral phenomena
in 2014–2015. This is only one of the similarities they share. The differences
between them are many, including countries of origin, combat duties and
military framework. With the exception of the Israeli female pilot’s image,
the photographs are neither official nor institutional, yet all photographers
involved had to be cleared by their respective armed forces before joining
them and obtaining the authorities’ permission to capture, reproduce, transmit
and distribute the photographs to spectators of distant wars. This is but one
manifestation of the mutually dependent, mutually reinforced relations
between militaries and the media.
These photographs have been chosen for discussion in this chapter because
of the questions the images pose, and the questions which then circulated
around these images. What is highlighted? Moreover, what is hidden within the
frame? Which worldviews are openly represented or downplayed? Do visual
representations of fighters challenge and undermine traditional cultural perceptions of gender? What perceptions of traditional gender relations continue to
seep under the egalitarian image of woman combatant? Nationalism and ideology, liberalism, equality, motherhood, propaganda, religion, Eros and beauty
are some of the concepts that featured at the core of a public debate that
transcended countries, disciplines and languages and focused on these photographs of Israeli and Kurdish women fighters. As noted by Darden, ‘The
presence of women in war as active combatants is a global phenomenon
observed across formal and informal military groups’ (Darden 2015, p.1). As
other chapters in this Handbook illustrate, the intersection of gender, military
participation and combat raises issues of gender regime, body perception,
gender roles and gender stereotypes, as well as power relations, inclusion and
exclusion. Assuming multi-disciplinary, contextual and international perspectives, this chapter will paint a vivid picture of the social, cultural and ideological
issues surrounding visual representations of women combatants in the two
contexts under discussion here. The aim is to illuminate layers of meanings
GENDER AND VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN COMBATANTS
479
and the ambiguous positions that the photographs inhabit. The intention is to
analyze photographs as vehicles of social discourse, exploring how they construct a political and gender subjectivity.
A Caracal Combatant and a Beautiful Daydreamer
In this section, I discuss an image of a Caracal battalion combatant, but open
with a brief introduction to the battalion and women’s military participation in
Israel. Jewish women were part of the guerrilla voluntary militias operating in
Israel pre-1948, and served in numerous assignments, including combat roles
and aviation, though on a voluntary basis. In 1949, the first Knesset (Israeli
parliament and the legislative branch of the Israeli government) passed the
Security Service Law. One of its implications was the nationalization and
militarization of the Israeli male and female body. Since then, Israeli–Jewish
women have been conscripted into military service, though theirs was at one
time limited, by law (1951), to non-combat roles. The inclusion of women in
the military is based on the concept of the Israeli society as Western, liberal and
egalitarian. As Israeli researchers have shown (Sasson-Levy 2006; Izraeli 1999;
Levy 2003), women’s participation, and simultaneously their marginalization
and exclusion from combat roles, has shaped the character of IDF, entrenching
the myth of the Israeli army as ‘the people’s army’ and helping generate Israel’s
image as a ‘nation in arms’.
The 1949 legislation serves as the starting point for current discussions on
civil–military relations and the phenomenon of militarism in Israel. Focusing
on gender relations in IDF and on the decisive role of women’s conscription in
shaping the military–society relations, Levy (2003) and Brownfield-Stein
(2012) argue that women’s conscription and the nature of their military service
has a decisive role to play in shaping the military–society relations and how
‘civil militarism’ is propagated. Sasson-Levy (2006) discusses the gender
aspects, employing terms such as women’s autonomy, justice, exclusion and
equal rights taken from the liberal feminist discourse. Sasson-Levy points to
solid principles of hierarchic order, revealing a twofold mechanism and a
dialectical movement of exclusion and inclusion, typical of the law as well as
of military practices regarding women soldiers. Izraeli (1999) states that gender segregation, different screening and placement processes and a genderbased work division constituted the gender regime in the IDF and in its
military practices.
In recent decades, due to public pressure to open a variety of combat roles to
women and promote women soldiers to the highest ranks, and following Alice
Miller’s 1995 Supreme Court petition,8 the IDF has made some changes with
regards to gender integration. In January 2000, the Israeli Supreme Court
declared that combat roles and other previously restricted roles be open to
women. According to the IDF (2013), 34 percent of IDF soldiers are women,
while 92 percent of IDF jobs are open to them. Some screening and placement
processes, as well as courses and bases, have been gender-merged, while spatial
480
C. BROWNFIELD-STEIN
separation has been reduced. The number of roles open to women has been
expanded, and the IDF has established mixed-gender infantry units. New
positions have opened up and women have been integrated in the warfare
array units, as high-ranking and infantry officers, naval captains, border police,
Humvee drivers, pilots, naval commandos, combat navigators, anti-aircraft
operators and in field intelligence roles. According to the IDF, ‘women make
up 4.3 percent of all combat soldiers in the IDF, and each year the number
increases’ (IDF 2014). At the same time, the theocratization of the Israeli
military has encouraged strong religious objections to the integration of
women in all positions. Despite these data, the growing rate of women’s
participation in the military does not actually indicate that the IDF is now a
gender-egalitarian organization.
The mixed-gender battalion was founded in 2000 as an experimental unit,
and in 2004 three units were consolidated under it. Based in the Negev desert,
the Caracal Battalion was named after a desert lynx (Felis Caracal), whose sexes
are almost indistinguishable. The number 33 is the battalion’s number, which
stands for the number of female fighters who fell during the 1948 war. The
Caracal Battalion was the first combat battalion where women soldiers volunteering to join the unit shared the same roles as their male counterparts. While
the battalion is mixed-gender, women make up about 60 percent of it.
Following its establishment, the Caracal Battalion was stationed along the
Israeli-Egyptian and Israeli-Jordanian border, and its primary role is to patrol
the Israeli-Egyptian border, intercepting infiltrators and disrupting smuggling
from the Sinai Peninsula. Operational activities include patrols, observation,
chases and ambushing. On September 2012, according to Duvedevani (2012),
the battalion responded to a combative attack near Mount Harif, leaving three
gunmen dead, one of whom was killed by a woman sniper. It was not the first
or last time that Caracal women combatants were involved in combative
offensives.
What can we see in the photograph9 published in Ynet’s Hebrew and
English editions (Ynet 2014; Ynetnews 2014) on 30 May 2014? A single figure
of a woman in army uniform: trousers, shirt and identity disk. A closer,
informed look at the sleeve ranks may reveal she is an IDF ground forces
sergeant (Hebrew inscription), in combat fatigues. The figure stands in the
front plane of the photograph’s space. Compositionally, it is positioned in line
with the classic ‘Golden Section’.10 The background is out of focus. She is
alone, a large number of blurry items behind her; backpacks, a trash can and
several soldierly figures that can be identified as women by their long hair.
Technically speaking, the depth of field is small, producing selective focus
and isolation, while setting the photographed subject apart from its background. Thus isolated, the subject earns full attention and the viewer’s eyes
are channeled to the highest resolution. At the same time, the background
becomes a uniform surface, supporting the subject. The emotional implications
of this photographic strategy are a sense of closeness and intimacy with the
focal figure. In the photograph, the contrast between the only focused figure
GENDER AND VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN COMBATANTS
481
at the front and the multiple blurry details surrounding it intensifies her
uniqueness and singularity, and accentuates her isolation and loneliness.
These factors contribute to her presentation as a precious, lifeless object tobe-looked-at, rather than the active agent (combat soldier) that she is. In
addition, the subtext suggests that this is neither a commonplace nor a social
phenomenon, but rather one-of-its-kind, a singular case.
The woman soldier stands frontal. Her right hand is tucked into her belt
loops, in a masculine body gesture associated with power and control.
A closer look at this picture reveals something else: instead of the masculine
pose, hers is a somewhat leaning posture, while her body and head are slightly
tilted. Placing all her weight on one leg, her shoulders are angled to one
direction, while her pelvis leans in another. In effect, this image calls to mind
a statue on a pedestal with a contrapposto classic display; Michelangelo’s
David or Venus de Milo. Her posture acquires a new meaning as eternal
sculpture, or as an esthetic and unhistorical phenomenon. Her lips are thin,
her nose sharp, her delicate face bears traces of camouflage colors and her
light-colored hair is unkempt. Her gaze is turned sideways, unfocused. The
eyes are wide-open, yet fail to stare; she has a dreamy, weary, or perhaps,
hallucinating gaze. The female combatant, it seems, has just got out of bed or
is about to turn in. She does not stare back, allowing the viewer to gaze at her
in peace. The body has a strong presence, but it is the presence of a weary, a
tad defeated soldierly body, drowsy, withdrawn and dreamy. The message
conveyed is that of beauty and grace, combatant but harmless, less of an
Amazon and more a ‘girl next door’. One gets a sense of ‘the sleeping beauty’
or ‘daydreamer’, a tenderness that evokes protectiveness.
The photograph is categorized as ‘photojournalism’ or ‘documentary
photography’, taken as a snapshot, which holds the cultural status of eyewitness
evidence. It is as part of this that the combatant action is perceived to be
‘natural’, with the photograph undertaking a ‘reflection’ of reality, and ‘representation’ of a military sphere. As a rule, journalistic photographs range
from an aesthetic pattern of ‘documentation’ to a pattern of ‘reporting’,
through which the denotative authority of the photograph, the nearby perspective, as well as the random nature of the action, produce a sense of
‘authenticity’, the thing ‘as it was’. Therefore, under the guise of transparency,
objectivity and impartiality, photographs as such are perceived as part of the
‘demand for truth’ and ‘truth regime’, which can overshadow their conditions
of production.
Each encounter with a photograph confronts one with a product of visual
manipulations, visual choices and aesthetic codes of framing and reframing.
Even though the visual image is perceived instantaneously, reading visual
representations is always contextual and continual. One cannot sever the
affiliations between photographs and their conditions of production, positioning, the interplay between headlines, as well as captions, subtitles and accompanying texts. In the present case, it is only out of the text and context that one
can figure out that she is a female combatant.
482
C. BROWNFIELD-STEIN
What are the text and context? The photograph is one of 13 taken by Cohen
(2014),11 Reuters’ photographer in Israel. The photo essay offers a unique and
revealing insight into the Israeli battalion. The headline in the Hebrew edition
reads: ‘20 km for a beret: photos from Caracal graduation’ (Ynet 2014). The
English version is slightly differently worded and focus is placed on the gender
issue: ‘In pictures: IDF’s female fighters finish training’ (Ynetnews 2014). The
caption reads: ‘Only moments between her and the beret’ (Ynet 2014).
Captions accompanying photographs illustrate the visible. Furthermore, the
titles indicate what viewers should be seeing. The pendulum movement
between the visual and literal allows identification of the visual, as well as
escape from its seductive power. As a rule, the nature of the affiliation between
caption and photograph is one possible factor that allows the creation of
different stances regarding that which is visible. The space of the relationship
between literal and visual may mark the difference between the option of
reading the photograph as an eyewitness evidence, an informative description
or a critical argument.
As evident in the photo essay, additional photographs of the battalion’s
fighters have been published; photographs of activity and energy displayed
in a wide variety of military themes, like running and stretcher carrying.
However, the international media did not find them attractive enough to
include in the best photos of 2014. A jump to the next two photographs in
Cohen’s series highlights the differences between their hidden message and
the message of the selected photograph. Despite their visual proximity and
their common theme, the next two photographs may challenge the gender
regime, while the selected photograph is supporting it. The first of these
too has its focus on a woman soldier against blurred surroundings, taken,
again, with a small depth of field. The face of the female soldier that forms
the focus of the field of vision is vital, covered in camouflage colors and lit
by a phosphorous stick. The visual signs attesting that she is a combatant
are evident in her bullet-proof vest and equipment. A further photograph
(no. 9) is taken using a similar technique of small depth of field with the
focus placed on the profile of a single female soldier. The profile angle
attracts the viewer’s focus to the action, instead of inviting them to question
the relationship between the photographer and the photographed.
Although capturing a state of rest, the body language is assertive and
strong, and a sense of tension attends this image.
Visual representations of female combatants can raise issues of gender regime,
and problematize traditional concepts of femininity and models of soldiering,
while visually contesting perceptions of the male domination of combat. The
chosen photograph, however, visually waters down the aggressive image of
warfare. Though it acknowledges women’s participation in combat roles, it
reaffirms and perpetuates traditional patterns of photogenic woman, and femininity as vulnerability and beauty.
As I have already noted, the theocratization of the Israeli military has encouraged strong religious objections to the presence and integration of secular women
GENDER AND VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN COMBATANTS
483
soldiers in combat units. The tension and the intersection between religious concepts, women and the military, and uses of the presence of women soldiers in
combat units as a tool of political struggle and as an expression of power relations is
also directed to the visual field. A day after Cohen’s photo essay was published, the
Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm noted: ‘Such a photo series is provocative
propaganda ( . . . ) to serve the Israeli army’ (Israa 2014). The journalist quoted
Prof. Fouad from the University of Alexandria, who claimed that one of the goals of
these images was to beautify the image of the Israeli army, adding from a religious
perspective: ‘Should the Egyptian side object to the presence of a battalion on the
common border that is two-thirds women?’. The connection of gender and
religious perspective appeared not only in discussions about Caracal combatants
but as we will see further also in the context of YPJ.
A Female Combat Pilot and a Mother Breastfeeding
The IAF is considered one of the IDF’s elite units, while the pilot training course
ranks even higher in the military hierarchy. During the 1948 War and the early
1950s, only a handful of women served as pilots, while for more than 40 years,
the doors of the IAF Aviation Academy remained shut for Israeli women soldiers.
Even though Miller’s petition (see above) led to gender integration in the IDF,
thus paving the way for women to serve in combat roles and opening the IAF
Flight School’s gates to women, the number of female fighters remains low. The
first woman combat navigator graduated in 1998, while in 2001, the first woman
combat pilot graduated from flight school. According to the IAF (2013),
women serve as IAF pilots, combat navigators, technicians of combat planes,
transport planes and helicopters, and as flight engineers.
The photograph of a female combat pilot breastfeeding her child and its
posting on the IAF Facebook page (2015) raises other issues associated with
women’s contribution to the nation-state, and traditional representation patterns of women in general and women soldiers in particular. How does it show
us what we see? In the case of the IAF female pilot, the image is cropped from a
larger frame. An upper body is seen, headless, from the shoulders down; light
blue IAF uniform shirt with an IAF Unit tag and IAF pilot wings campaign
ribbon. The shirt is unbuttoned, offering a glimpse of a white vest. Both hands
hold a breastfeeding baby. The breast, like the baby’s face, remains covered,
with only a patch of his/her cheek and hair showing. The gender of the baby,
wearing a white vest and light blue trousers, is unclear, as he/she lays a hand on
the mother’s breast aperture. The baby’s slanted position focuses the eye on
him/her and the suckling action. The fragmentation is presumably due to
military censorship. However, it emphasizes the pilot’s femininity, highlighting
the cultural stereotype of the woman as body. In addition, it accentuates
motherhood. Mother’s Day is the context of the image and the text on the
Facebook page declares: ‘Since 1914, the world has been marking Mother’s
Day on Sunday of the second week in May. Since 1948, thousands of mothers
have been family. We salute them.’
484
C. BROWNFIELD-STEIN
In Israel, the discourse of motherhood in Israel and the symbol of republican motherhood have been adopted and co-opted by a patriotic and militaristic discourse (Berkovitch 1997). Elsewhere, in my discussion of the
eroticization of civil militarism in Israel (Brownfield-Stein 2012), I describe
the militarization of motherhood, exposing how the dominant visual representations of IDF women soldiers are those of mothers’ stereotypical roles in
carrying and feeding. Of all military roles, that of aircraft pilot is considered
the most prestigious. The Deputy Commander of Squadron X is highly
esteemed and her professional level is the highest. Nevertheless, she is represented primarily as a (militarized) body, providing one example of the social
ambivalence at play in Israel regarding women’s service as combatants and their
ambiguous positioning in the national discourse between motherhood and
soldiering.
The overt and covert message of this photograph reads that even if the most
hierarchical of roles is now open to women, the visual minimizes their professionalism, underplaying their military combat position. It asserts the female
combat fighter as trapped by her traditional role as nurturer and framed in the
cultural representations as a body and mother. At the same time, and from a
different angle, the image displays the possibility of being in the dual positions
of combatant and mother, while visually normalizing and naturalizing
breastfeeding.12
The importance of visuality to gender power relations and to cultural constructions of combatants, professionalism and motherhood are made obvious
by the cases of these two visual representations of women combatants from the
Caracal battalion and the IAF. Gender stereotypes and visual cultural connotations that tie eroticism and pornography to military uniforms and women
soldiers are no novelty (Brownfield-Stein 2012). Female sexuality is a key
issue when it comes to women’s presence in the military or to military organizational structure, and is ever more acute in relation to combat and mixedgender battalions.
A Kurdish Woman Combatant and a Poster Girl
The third example I discuss here is that of a Kurdish woman combatant with
the Yekîneyên Parastina Jinê (YPJ) – the Women’s Protection Units. Kurdish
women have been involved in armed resistance and guerilla paramilitary organizations for decades, across Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran, but in the past had
attracted very little Western media attention. Since August 2014, the Syrian
Kurdish Peshmerga militia (PKK), as well as the mixed-gender battalions of
Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (YPG), or armed ‘People’s Protection Units’, and the
YPJ have attracted significant coverage by international mainstream media.
Photographs and video footage of the Kurdish fighters have circulated in global
news sites, despite the fact that PKK has been designated a terrorist organization by the US State Department, due to its use of armed combat in its fight for
Kurdish rights in Turkey. Global news sites (NBC 2014; CNN 2014b) have
GENDER AND VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN COMBATANTS
485
focused on the role of Kurdish women in the fight against Islamic State of Iraq
and Syria (ISIS), the Islamic fundamentalist group active in the region.
The YPJ, a socialist organization, was established as part of the Kurdish resistance and social revolution, in accordance with a socialist worldview that considered
women to be equal partners, with equal rights and duties in the armed political
struggle. We can find Kurdish women participating in regional and local politics, as
well as in administrative and bureaucratic positions. To cite the Kurdish activist
Dirik: ‘Parallel to the existential fight against ISIL, women in the Syrian Kurdistan
region, including Arabs, Assyrians, Turkmen, and Armenians, lead a social revolution against society’s patriarchal order through gender-egalitarian governance and a
grassroots-feminist movement’ (Dirik 2014).
The Peshmerga female unit was formed in 1996 to fight the regime of
President Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It was made up of several hundred fighters,
all of whom were volunteers. Around 7,000 to 10,000 volunteer women have
joined the Women’s Protection Unit. Kurdish culture is not alien to that mode
of resistance. Yet, as reported by the Kurdish online newspaper: ‘Despite the
Kurds’ long-standing reputation of deploying female fighters, most are from
the leftist PKK and its affiliates’ (RUDAW 2014). YPJ’s fighting is considered
spatial defense. The forces are structured as a guerrilla organization that moves
from one village to another and receives its support from the locals. Military
equipment is sparse; most female fighters are trained as snipers, while the
weight physically shouldered by both male and female fighters is relatively low.
Over the past two years, the YPG and the YPJ have been fighting primarily
against Syria’s President Assad in Kurdish Rojava. From September 2014 to
date, Kurdish female fighters have been presented as key combatants against
ISIS in the strategic Syrian city of Kobane. As noted by CNN (2014b), about
35 percent of YPG’s forces are women, while the battalion fighting for the city
of Kobane operates under its own female commander. The media coverage of
YPJ ranges from that of a professional military perspective on women fighters
holding guns, conducting mock assaults, to portraits of exotic beauty and
sexualized images. Western fascination with Kurdish female fighters received
visual and verbal endorsement when CNN pronounced the Kurdish female
fighters (YPJ) the most inspiring women of 2014. This cultural event is a
manifestation of the political–military–media network, as well as of the complex interrelation between economy, commercial media, governments and war
photography.
Photographs of Kurdish female fighters in combat maneuvers, firearm drills,
ambush exercises or sniper trainings circulate across the internet, yet the photograph generating wide resonance and highest exposure was that of the female
fighter, known by the pseudonym ‘Rehana’. Rumors about her identity, fighting
and (hypothetical?) death alongside her photo have been retweeted, shared and
circulated online since August 2014 (Rakusen et al. 2014; Hall 2014; CNN
2014b).
Looking at the image,13 we can see an attractive, blonde woman in combat
uniforms, taking up most of the frame. Her right hand rests on her gun, to her
486
C. BROWNFIELD-STEIN
side. Behind her stand male fighters. She is the only one looking at the camera,
the only one with a weapon and full fatigues. The rest wear a blend of civilian
clothes and uniforms. She stares straight at the lens, which is focused on her as
she smiles, her left hand held up to flash a V-for-victory sign. Her body
language, her direct gaze and wide flirtatious smile highlight the camera’s
presence. As a result, the image reduces some of the intensity associated with
combatants, intensifying social codes of gendered femininity.
For many years, Kurdish women have been fighting in exclusively female
units and alongside men. Why, then, is it only recently that they have
started occupying the spotlight and generating media glorification?
According to Western media (Telegraph, New York Post, Mail Online)14
women’s bodies and femininity have become a strategy of war and a
propaganda tool, due to ISIS members’ fears founded on religious belief,
whereby fighters killed by women will neither make it to heaven nor spend
eternity with Allah. Alongside the humiliation of the enemy and degradation of his religious views, all at once, the Western media focus was on
women’s bodies as a battlefield. The implications of the ‘spectacle of
beautiful warriors’ include eroticization and objectification of female combatants, to the point where their weapons, skills and social, national and
feminist ideologies are reduced to an erotic fantasy.
EPILOGUE: WOMEN COMBATANTS STIRRING INSULT
AND
FEAR
In contemporary visual culture the affinities between gender, media and armed
conflicts have been strengthened. Analyzing how IDF women combatants and
the Kurdish women combatants in Kobane are visually captured in order to
understand the power relationship between gender, militaries and media
reveals that they are reconstructed and subjected within the Gordian knot
binding military, masculinity and combat.
The three images that generated such Western public interest all share
egalitarian charisma and the fascination with the combatant that they stir,
as well as a tendency to downplay the destructive potential of combat
roles. The three images highlight the complexity of the visual field. The
photographs both break down some gender stereotypes and reinforce
others. Ultimately, they may reinforce traditional patterns of women’s
representation more. None of them suggests active presence. As well as
addressing the sociological opportunities and cultural challenges posed by
women combatants, the visual representations resort to traditional patterns of women’s representation. Exploring these photographs of women
combatants, in order to understand the ideologies promoted alongside
heroic, liberal, and egalitarian narratives, exposes that they mediate
women’s participation in combat roles, away from their professional military action. They mostly capture attractive images of young, beautiful
women as representative of the nation-state.
GENDER AND VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN COMBATANTS
487
With regard to contemporary wars, in which visuality has become a dominant
agent and has a crucial role in political and military strategies, I argue that the
images capturing Western fascination and media attraction in 2014 serve as
instruments to legitimize Ethos and Eros.15 By this, I mean that they legitimize
the Ethos of modern liberalism and women’s equality, and at the same time
validate the eroticism of femininity or the cultural erotic quality of women. The
visual dictionary distributed thereby constitutes a visual bridge and carrier of
professional liberal military values, as well as ‘shortcut’ for visual pleasure and
fantasies. A review of the genre of photojournalism and the truth regimes
embedded therein reveals that beauty, objectification, corporeality and motherhood are promoted even with images of combatants. It exposes that (liberal)
Ethos and (feminine) Eros, justification (war) and humiliation (enemies) are
captured and stimulated by visual representations of women combatants.
NOTES
1. Berger and Naaman (2011, p. 281) use the terms ‘combat cuties’ and ‘combat
pussies’ to describe the erotization and objectification of IDF female combat
soldiers.
2. Available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2810780/Rehanaalive-ISIS-fanatics-NOT-beheaded-Poster-girl-Kurdish-freedom-fightersescaped-Kobane-hellhole-friends-tell-MailOnline.html.
Available from: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4599845,00.html.
Available from: http://widerimage.reuters.com/story/women-of-theisraeli-army.
Available from: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4525510,00.html.
Available from: https://www.facebook.com/IsraeliAirForce.EN/photos/pb.
234494436593536.2207520000.1455390845./930385137004459/?type=
3&theater.
Available from: http://www.mako.co.il/news-military/security-q2_2015/
Article-ad9a92b7a8f3d41004.htm.
3. Available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2810780/Rehanaalive-ISIS-fanatics-NOT-beheaded-Poster-girl-Kurdish-freedom-fightersescaped-Kobane-hellhole-friends-tell-MailOnline.html.
4. Available from: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4599845,00.html.
5. Available from: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4525510,00.html.
6. Available from: http://widerimage.reuters.com/story/women-of-theisraeli-army.
7. Available from: http://www.mako.co.il/news-military/security-q2_2015/
Article-ad9a92b7a8f3d41004.htm.
8. On 8 November 1995, the Israeli Supreme Court approved the petition of Alice
Miller and ruled that the IDF must open its pilot training course to women. Alice
Miller’s request to be a combat pilot was rejected out of hand because she was a
woman. Formally, Alice Miller submitted a private petition, but it was perceived
as a public petition against the army’s policy, which discriminated against women
as a group. In their ruling, the judges called for equal treatment for all prospective
candidates. The ‘revolutionary’ decision raised not only the issue of women being
488
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
C. BROWNFIELD-STEIN
combat pilots, but serving in combat positions in the army’s other branches as
well. The Miller ruling served as a feminist achievement which abolished a form of
discrimination that violated equal rights for women in a realm of great symbolic
importance. http://www.dindayan.com/rulings/94045410.z01.pdf
Available from: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4525510,00.html
and available from: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4525523,00.
html.
The concept of the ‘Golden Section’, the ‘Golden Ratio’ and the ‘Divine
proportion’ is found in the visual arts, as a tool for composition to achieve
harmony and balance. Leonardo da Vinci was probably, the first who called it
the ‘sectio aurea’, which is Latin for golden section. The Golden Ratio
composition lines were used by the Old Masters, and are still being used
today by leading experts in visual arts.
Available from: http://widerimage.reuters.com/story/women-of-theisraeli-army.
In contrast to IAF, the idea that breastfeeding minimizes, underplays and
destroys a professional image of soldiering and military uniforms is familiar
to the United States Air Force. The Israeli woman combat pilot’s photograph went viral across the internet, just like the photo of two Air National
Guard members (Echegoyen-McCabe and Luna) breastfeeding their babies
in combat uniforms at Fairchild Air Force Base. Photographer Sigurdardottir
took the photo to create posters for National Breastfeeding Awareness Week
in August. According to NBC News (NBC 2012) some public reactions
supported the two, whilst others claimed the photo was disrespectful of the
uniforms, comparing it to pornography, or to defecating and urinating [in
uniform]. A US Air Force spokesperson added: ‘Airmen should be mindful
of their dress and appearance and present a professional image at all times
while in uniform’ (NBC 2012).
Available from: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-29853513.
Crilly, R. (2014) Isil fanatics ‘fear being killed by a woman will deprive them of
virgins in paradise’. The Telegraphy [Online] 20 September 2014. Available from:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11110724/
Isil-fanatics-fear-being-killed-by-a-woman-will-deprive-them-of-virgins-in-para
dise.html.
Earle, G. (2014) ISIS fighters terrified of being killed by female troops. NEW
YORK POST. [Online] 19 September 2014. Available from: http://nypost.
com/2014/09/19/isis-fighters-terrified-of-being-killed-by-female-troops/.
Malm, S. (2015) What really scares ISIS? GIRLS! Jihadists believe that if they
are killed by a woman they won’t go to heaven, claim Kurdish fighters.
MAILONLINE. [Online] 9 December 2015. Available from: http://www.daily
mail.co.uk/news/article-3353330/ISIS-afraid-girls-Jihadists-believe-killedwomen-won-t-heaven-claim-feared-Kurdish-fighters.html.
Ethos is a Greek word meaning ‘character’. It denotes the disposition,
character, or fundamental values of a community and the underlying beliefs
and ideals of a society and culture. Eros is the Greek word meaning ‘love’ or
‘desire’. In Greek mythology, Eros was the god of love. According to
Hesiod, Eros was one of the fundamental causes in the formation of the
world, inasmuch as he was the uniting power of love.
GENDER AND VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN COMBATANTS
489
REFERENCES
Berger, E. & Naaman, D. (2011) Combat cuties: Photographs of Israeli women soldiers
in the press since the 2006 Lebanon. Media, War & Conflict 4 (3), 269–286.
Berkovitch, N. (1997) Motherhood as a national mission: The construction of womanhood in the legal discourse in Israel. Women’s Studies International Forum 20 (5–6),
605–619.
Brownfield-Stein, C. (2010) Visual representations of IDF women soldiers and ‘civilmilitarism’ in Israel. In Sheffer, G. & Barak, O. (Eds.). Militarism and Israeli Society.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 304–328.
Brownfield-Stein, C. (2012) Fantasy of the State, Photograph of IDF Female Soldiers and
the Eroticization of Civil Militarism in Israel. Tel-Aviv: Resling.
Campbell, D. (2003) Representing contemporary war. Ethics & International Affairs
17 (2), 99–108.
Campbell, D. & Shapiro, M. J. (2007) Securitization, militarization and visual culture
in the worlds of post-9/11. Security Dialogue 38 (2), 131–138.
CNN News. (2014a) The Women of the Year. 19th December 2014. Available from:
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/19/business/gallery/leading-women-2014/
index.html [Accessed: 29th January 2015].
CNN News. (2014b) Why Women Fight Against ISIS. 30th October 2014. Available
from: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/14/opinion/ghitis-isis-women-slavery/
[Accessed: 20th April 2015].
Cohen, A. (2014) Women of Israeli Army. 3rd June 2014. Available from: http://wider
image.reuters.com/story/women-of-the-israeli-army [Accessed: 05 January 2015].
Darden, J. T. (2015) Assessing the significance of women in combat roles.
International Journal 70 (3), 446–454.
Dirik, D. (2014) Western fascination with ‘badass’ Kurdish women. Al Jazeera. [Online]
29th October 2014. Available from: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/
2014/10/western-fascination-with-badas-2014102112410527736.html [Accessed:
06th May 2015].
Duvedevani, H. (2012) A combative attack near Mount Harif – woman sniper kills
terrorist. 23 September 2012. Available from: http://www.idf.il/1133-17154-he/
Dover.aspx [Accessed: 08th May 2015].
Ette, M. (2013). Gendered frontlines: British press coverage of women soldiers killed in
Iraq. Media War & Conflict 6 (3), 249–262.
Griffin, M. (2010) Media images of war. Media, War & Conflict 3 (1), 7–41.
Hall, J. (2014) Rehana is alive and well. Mail Online. 28th October 2014. Available
from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk [Accessed: 22nd February 2015].
Heck, A. & Schlag, G. (2012) Securitizing images: The female body and the war in
Afghanistan. European Journal of International Relations 19 (4), 891–913.
IAF (Israeli Air Force) Blog. (2013) The Next Generation of Female Pilots. 31st January
2013. Available from: http://www.iaf.org.il/4391-40405-EN/IAF.aspx
[Accessed: 10th April 2015].
IAF Facebook. (2015) Happy Mother’s Day. 10th May 2015. Available from: https://
www.facebook.com/IsraeliAirForce.HE/photos/[Accessed: 11th May 2015].
IDF (Israeli Defense Force) Blog. (2013) IDF Leads the Way in Gender Integration.
22nd July 2013. Available from: https://www.idfblog.com/blog/2013/07/22/
article-idf-leads-the-way-in-gender-integration/[Accessed: 07th May 2015].
490
C. BROWNFIELD-STEIN
IDF Blog. (2014) PHOTOS: Female Combatant Soldiers Complete Their Training. 19th
November 2014. Available from: https://www.idfblog.com/blog/2014/11/19/
photos-female-combatant-soldiers-complete-training/[Accessed: 07th May 2015].
Israa, M. A. (2014) Pictures: Israeli women battalion on the Sinai border. Al-Masry AlYoum. 31st May 2014. Available from: http://www.almasryalyoum.com/news/
details/456375 [Accessed: 26th July 2015].
Izraeli, D. (1999) Gendering the Israeli military service. Theory and Criticism 14, 85–109.
Keith, S. (2010) Comparing war images across media platforms: Methodological challenges for content analysis media. War & Conflict 3 (1): 87–98.
Levy, Y. (2003) The Other Army of Israel. Tel-Aviv: Tapuach – Yediot Ahronot.
Masters, C. (2009) Femina sacra: The ‘war on/of terror’, women and the feminine.
Security Dialogue 40 (1), 29–49.
NBC News (2012) Military Mom ‘proud’ of Breast-Feeding in Uniform, Despite Criticism.
30th May 2012. Available from: http://www.today.com/parents/military-momproud-breast-feeding-uniform-despite-criticism-803342 [Accessed: 13th April 2015].
NBC News (2014) Meet the Kurdish Women Fighting ISIS in Syria. 10th September
2014. Available from: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/meet-kurd
ish-women-fighting-isis-syria-n199821 [Accessed: 20th April 2015].
Rakusen, I., Devichand, M., Yildiz, G. & Tomchak, A-M. (2014) #BBC trending: Who
is the ‘Angel of Kobane’? BBC NEWS. 3rd November 2014. Available from: http://
www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-29853513 [Accessed: 25th March 2015].
RUDAW News (2014) No Frontline Deployment for Female Kurdish Troops. 28th
September 2014. Available from: http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/28092014
[Accessed: 25th April 2015].
Sasson-Levy, O. (2006) Identities in Uniform: Masculinity and Femininity in the Israeli
Army. Jerusalem: Magness Press.
Schwalbe, B. C. (2015) Visual coverage of the 2006 Lebanon War: Framing conflict in
three US news magazines. Media. War & Conflict 8 (1), 141–162.
Sliwinski, S. (2011) Human Rights in Camera. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sontag, S. (1990) On Photography. New York: Anchor Books.
Tagg, J. (2009) The Disciplinary Frame, Photography Truths and the Capture Meaning.
Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press.
Tagg, J. (2012) The archiving machine; or, the camera and the filing cabinet. Grey
Room 47, 24–37.
YNET (2014) 20 km and having a beret: Photos from Caracal’s graduation march.
Yedioth Ahronoth. 30th May 2014. Available from: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/
0,7340,L-4525510,00.html [Accessed: 04th May 2015].
YNET News (2014) In pictures: IDF’s female fighters finish training. Yedioth Ahronoth.
30th May 2014. Available from: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L4525523,00.html [Accessed: 04th May 2015].
Zelizer, B. (2004) When war is reduced to a photograph. In Allan, S. & Zelizer, B.
(Eds.) Reporting War: Journalism in Wartime. London: Routledge, pp. 115–135.
Dr. Chava Brownfield-Stein is a senior lecturer and the Head of the Masters
Program in Arts Education in the Faculty of Arts—HANIDERASHA at Beit Berl
College, Israel. Her research and teaching interests include gender, photography and
visual culture, militarism, nationalism and memory studies. Her recent book is Fantasy
of the State: Photographs of IDF Female Soldiers and the Eroticization of Civil Militarism
GENDER AND VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN COMBATANTS
491
in Israel (Resling 2012). Her current research focuses on gender, technologies of
photography, digital visualization and remote sensing technologies. She explores cooperations and hybrid situations that arise in Israeli Defence Force units between video
games, military simulators, artificial warzones and real-life warfare.