Gender Ironies of Nationalism: Sexing the Nation

Gender Ironies of Nationalismprovides a unique social science reading on the construction of nation, gender and sexuality and on the interactions among them. Including international case studies including the US, the Caribbean, Indonesia, Ireland, former Yugoslavia, Liberia, Sri Lanka, Australia, Turkey, China, and India, contributors offer both the masculine and feminine perspective on exploring gender in Jewish and Chinese nationalism, and the anger of white men, just to name a few. They expose how nations are comprised of sexed bodies, and exploring the gender ironies of nationalism and how sexuality plays a key role in nation building and in sustaining national identity. The contributors conclude that control over access to the benefits of belonging to the nation is invariably gendered: nationalism becomes the language through which sexual control and repression is justified masculine prowess is expressed and exercised. While it is men who claim the prerogatives of nation and nationbuilding it is, for the most part, women who actually accept the obligation of nation and nation building.

Tamar Mayer is Professor of Geography at Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, USA.