The Politics of Trauma Studies: What Can We Learn From Women Combatants' Experiences of Traumatic Events in Conflict Zones?

Abstract

Ayelet Harel-Shalev Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Wars, combat, and political developments triggered the study of trauma. Knowledge about trauma initially emerged from the experiences of men combatants in the battlefield. At a later stage, the study of trauma focused on women and children subject to violence and abuse. The current research suggests that additional aspects of trauma can be understood through the study of competent women exposed to traumatic events and not merely as victims of war or abuse. The study offers an analysis of women combatants' narratives of their exposure to traumatic events in conflict zones. Data were obtained from two focus groups and a series of 30 personal interviews of women veterans who served in the IDF. Interviewing women combat soldiers revealed a variety of narratives of their war experiences, including the intertwining of the emotional and the physical. The window to understanding the trauma was opened by analysis of the responses of the women combatants to potentially traumatic events rather than by focusing on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) per se. We emphasize the need for a critical perspective in the study of trauma and combat trauma and propose that there is value in engaging with and listening to diverse narratives of trauma.KEY WORDS: women combatants, trauma, body, armed conflicts, war, feminist IR "I remember I didn't feel a thing. I had to pee before that, and when they brought the dead bodies and the wounded soldiers, I didn't feel anything. I didn't think about anything. I didn't have to pee anymore. I didn't feel that heaviness that I had before. I felt a mixture of stuff, and there was the smell. I remember the smell. I smell it now. I imagine a burnt smell, when hair is burned, like plastic. A burned body has a weird smell of burned plastic. It's not like a bonfire, it's that sort of smell. . .. I smelled it only from bodies. I remember I didn't feel a thing afterwards. One of the combat men soldiers puked and another one was nauseous. I ignored it and kept on doing stuff, taking care of them, like it wasn't a part of my life. This interview with you is the first time I'm telling about the bodies, like it's not a part of my life right now. (Scurfield, 2009;Turnbull, 1998) and its aftermath emerged from the emotional experiences and combat distress of men combatants (Finkelhor, Shattuck, Turner, & Hamby, 2014;Freud, 1920Freud, /2011. This research was later complemented by studies of the trauma of women and children as abused victims (Brownmiller, 1975;Walker, 1993). Current knowledge about trauma, therefore, stems from studies on combat men and victim women. In this context, we suggest that hegemonic masculinity influences the study of trauma, just as it influences and reinforces everyday practices of gendered identities (Kronsell, 2006, 109).Judith Herman, in her seminal work on " Trauma and Recovery" (1992), held that the systematic study of psychological trauma was initiated as a result of the evolvement of political movements and political ...

Fighting for Equal Spiritual Voice: The Case of the “Women of the Wall”

“…As such, our study has political implications, since it has the potential to challenge dominant and repressive social practices. Similarly to the experiences of women in war zones, the WOW shared the violence they face with us, their personal distress and the traumatic moments of feeling danger and threat to their lives (Bowman, 2014; Daphna-Tekoah and Harel-Shalev, 2017). In conjunction with the voice of trauma and stress, we could trace the strength of the term sisterhood as an essential component in the WOW’s fight for equality.…”

“…The researchers then document their reflexive elements, emotional and intellectual responses, thoughts and feelings to better understand how their responses to the interviewees might affect their perception and the analysis (Daphna-Tekoah and Harel-Shalev, 2017). During the analysis of the first listening, we researchers felt empathy and identification with the women who have been consistently attacked for the last 30 years due to their vision and beliefs.…”

“…For example, combat is a masculine and patriarchic discourse and refers only to military combat, from which most women are excluded. The patriarchic discourse excludes women who fight against intimate violence, rape, and sexual harassment and does not refer to them as warriors, but rather as victims (Enloe, 2013; Daphna-Tekoah and Harel-Shalev, 2017; Harel-Shalev, 2017). Therfore, it is an action space in which organized activity of women who act within different frameworks takes place in the spirit of human rights in order to shape the social order to their advantage.…”

“…In her feminist thinking, Simone de Beauvoir exposed the social mechanism that led to the subordination of women to men in the patriarchic discourse (De Beauvoir, 2001, 2007). She claimed that “man” and “woman” are not “natural” or biological traits, but are rather cultural categories, and that femininity and masculinity are products of education.…”

The Role of Political Practices in Moral Injury: A Study of Afghanistan Veterans

“…Trauma studies identify as potentially traumatic events combat, killing, moral dilemmas, seeing people suffering, being wounded oneself, and so on (Clancy et al, ; Currier, Holland, Drescher, & Foy, ; Nash et al, ; Weathers, Litz, Huska, & Keane, ), which gives the impression that the only political solution to military suffering is not to send soldiers to war at all. However, it has become increasingly clear that, besides the nature of war and individual vulnerabilities, contextual factors also play a crucial role in the onset of war‐related suffering (e.g., Breslau & Davis, ; Daphna‐Tekoah & Harel‐Shalev, ; De Jong, ; Finley, ; Perilla, Norris, & Lavizzo, ; Stein, Seedat, Iversen, & Wessely, ; Suarez, ; Summerfield, ). Considering the importance of context, the question arises whether political practices perhaps do bear relevance with respect to military suffering.…”