Women and War: Female Combatants Across Time and Space

Traditionally, the scholarship on women in war has been primarily dominated by narratives of victimhood, loss, displacement, and, at times, resilience. These experiences are crucial to the understanding of gendered impacts of war; however, overemphasis on these experiences is problematic in the sense that often such a narrow narrative leads to undermining the important yet understudied role of women as participants in conflicts, directly as combatants or indirectly as supporters. History shows that across time and space, women have participated in wars as both state and non-state actors. Yet, more often than not, this experience of women in war receives little scholarly attention. Going beyond the dominant narrative of women as mere victims of violence, this panel aims to challenge conformist assumptions about wars, violence, and gendered stereotypical narratives of victimization and vulnerability through examining the varied experiences of female combatants. While recognizing that women's experiences of conflict are not mutually exclusive and women may simultaneously experience victimization, resistance, and participation in violence, the panel focuses primarily on the aspect of women’s participation in conflicts. The panel argues that exploring how women traverse, challenge, reproduce, and transgress established gendered hierarchies is crucial to understanding women’s experiences of war in its entirety. Towards this end, we invite interdisciplinary contributions from historians, political scientists, sociologists, feminist scholars, and others to collectively examine the motivations, recruitment, lived experiences, and post-conflict demobilization and reintegration of female combatants. Papers may focus on specific case studies or adopt comparative approaches across different regions and historical contexts. By bringing together interdisciplinary scholars examining an understudied aspect of the intersection of gender and war, this panel aims to foster a deeper academic understanding of the complex engagement of female combatants with conflicts across time and space.
Note: Microsoft Copilot was used for language editing.