Nationalism and gender

Normative understandings of masculinity and male behavior vary across cultural, historical, or geographical contexts.[8] Because male behavior and masculinity impact social and political relations, men and masculinity affect the development of nationalism. George Mosse has argued that modern masculine stereotypes exist in a mutual relationship to modern nationalism.[9] Nationalism and the structure and expansion of the state are closely related, and institutions like the military as well as state projects such as imperialism and colonialism are often dominated by male participants.[8] ^{: 248–249}

Shirin M. Rai has also pointed out how economic development tied to nation-building projects in postcolonial contexts is often gendered as masculine, ultimately devaluing the economic stability of women and subaltern men.[10] Within national structures, hierarchical models of authority and decision-making often prioritize men's authority, legal rights, labor, and sexuality.[8] ^: 251 Symbolically and ideologically, nationalist movements frequently valorize masculine projections of honor, patriotism, bravery, physical virility, rationality, individualism, and duty.[8] ^{: 251–252}[11]

World War I-era poster urges to American women to buy War Saving Stamps by using Joan of Arc as a symbol of female patriotism. Issued by the United States Treasury Department; artist: Haskell Coffin.

Specific social and political roles expected of women are not only tied to conceptions of femininity, but are also linked to local and national power relations. Social responsibilities, such as child-rearing, or particular forms of employment and interpersonal engagement become feminized and expected of women.[12] Women's labor and women's bodies have provided material and symbolic resources to nationalist and colonial projects.[13] National identities are often linked to women and their reproductive capacity.[14]

[15] When women resist these expectations, projections, and roles, their resistance impacts the development of national identity.[12] At the same time, nationalist movements have also provided disenfranchised women with potential opportunities to be treated as active participants within political and social spheres.[16] Summarizing the relationship between women and nationalism, Nira Yuval-Davis and Flora Anthias distinguish five forms by which women participate in nationalism. In their framework, women act as: biological producers of new national members, symbols of national difference, carriers and creators of cultural narratives, agents enforcing the boundaries of the nation, active participants in national movements.[17]

Nationalist movements are often aligned with heteronormative family models, that is, heterosexual family units assuming male leadership, female reproduction, as well as natural and complementary roles between men and women. Thus, nationalism has been identified as a tool to support heteronormative structures of power that exclude or subjugate sexual minorities and those outside of the male-female gender binary.[18]^: 117[19] These kind of movements also tend to emphasize heterosexual ideals as an antagonism of countries where LGBTI rights have been legislated, in a dynamic that some have called heteronationalism.[20][21][22]

Race and religion intersect with the development of nationalism and impact how gender roles are structured in relation to nationalism. Racialization, the process of ascribing race to particular social groups or individuals, always corresponds to particular configurations of gender, class, and nationalism.[23][24] For example, according to scholar Anne McClintock, the development of Afrikaner nationalism in South Africa was dependent on the rise of an apartheid doctrine among Afrikaner people and was also tied to gender roles that positioned women as subservient to men and with responsibilities of service to the nation.[18] ^: 104 Religion may also affect participation in nationalist movements, nationalist discourse, and motivations for establishing nation-states.[25][26]

The inclusion or expulsion of particular religious communities may be aligned with particular forms of gendered nationalist discourse. Theorist Jasbir Puar suggests that gendered discourses of nationalism often demonize or advocate the expulsion of Muslim people in the United States, thus tying particular understandings of the nation-state and nationalism to specific configurations of gender.[27] Religion may also inform gender roles in particular locations, thus when nationalist projects are undertaken women and men may feel tension between the gender expectations of their religion and the gender expectations associated with nationalist discourse.[28][29]

Muscular nationalism is a term developed by the political scientist Sikata Banerjee to describe the development of nationalism amidst tensions produced by gender binaries. Banerjee describes muscular nationalism as a form of nationalism that relies on a binary notion of gender with opposing conceptions of man versus woman. In such a situation, female activists and political actors contest a dualistic notion of nationalism, thus generating political, cultural, and social tension. The form of nationalism resulting from the binary and its contestation is muscular nationalism.[46]

Within studies of nationalism, gender, and sexuality, queer nationalism refers the process wherein homosexuality and queer sexuality function as the basis of social and political organization and produce particular nationalisms. Queer nationalism can also refer to the process of using queerness as a metaphor for types of affiliations between nation-states.[33][47][48][49]

Scholars have used the term homonationalism to describe the emergence of nationalism that advances support for homosexuality and LGBT rights while also promoting xenophobic, racist, colonialist, and supremacist ideologies.[50][51][52] Jasbir Puar, who first developed the term homonationalism, has argued that it describes a form of nationalism that assumes "sexual exceptionalism, queer as regulatory, and the ascendancy of whiteness."[53]

Developed by theorist Sara Farris, femonationalism describes a particular form of nationalism within western European contexts. Farris defines femonationalism as a form of nationalism that deploys feminist critique and support for gender equality while simultaneously promoting xenophobic, racist, and anti-Islam sentiment and policy.[54][55]