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Feminist Security Studies and the Negotiation of Masculinity and Migration

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Abstract

This paper addresses the theoretical approach of feminist security studies, a branch of the interdisciplinary field of security studies. Feminist security studies is part of a broader conceptualization of security. It includes – but is not limited to – questions such as how womanhood and gender are relevant for understanding security, why the assumption of a link between women and peace, as well as between men and war, exists, and how ilitarized language is inherently gendered. This paper engages with the question of how male gender roles and masculinity within an (in) security setting and connected issues are negotiated. It outlines different categories that emerge within the existing literature. To illustrate, the case of displacement and migration is explored in the second part of the paper. By doing so, the paper elaborates the ways in which established categories are applicable to newer fields of security. It does not neglect or belittle the experiences of women or LGBTQ* individuals and communities but rather argues for an all-encompassing approach within the field of feminist security studies. Keywords: Feminist Security Studies, Masculinity, Victimhood, Migration, Displacement
Repositorium für die Geschlechterforschung
Difference, Diversity, Diffraction. Confronting
Hegemonies and Dispossessions : Proceedings of
the 10th European Feminist Research Conference,
12–15 September 2018
Biele Mefebue, Astrid; En, Boka; Grenz, Sabine; Meshkova, Ksenia; Sifaki,
Angeliki (Hrsg.)
2021
https://doi.org/10.25595/2050
Veröffentlichungsversion / published version
Buch / book
Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation:
Biele Mefebue, Astrid; En, Boka; Grenz, Sabine; Meshkova, Ksenia; Sifaki, Angeliki (Hrsg.): Difference, Diversity,
Diffraction. Confronting Hegemonies and Dispossessions : Proceedings of the 10th European Feminist Research
Conference, 12–15 September 2018. 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25595/2050.
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Difference, Diversity,
Diffraction:
Confronting Hegemonies
and Dispossessions
edited by
Astrid Biele Mefebue, Boka En, Sabine Grenz,
Ksenia Meshkova, and Angeliki Sifaki
Proceedings of the
10th European Feminist Research
Conference, 12–15 September 2018
Proceedings of the 10th European Feminist Research Conference. The confe rence
was organised by the Göttingen Diversity Research Institute and the Göttingen
Centre for Gender Studies, and took place from 12 to 15 September 2018 at the
University of Göttingen. It was co-organised with ATGENDER and FG Gender.
The conference was promoted with funds from the Federal Ministry of Education
and Research under the reference number 01FP1719. Responsibility for the con-
tents of this publication lies with the authors.
Some chapter were previously published in the Open Gender Journal (OGJ).
Where applicable, this is indicated on the rst page of the respective chapter.
Keywords: feminism, gender, Gender Studies, feminist research, social move-
ments, sexuality, representation, othering, intersectionality, culture, Queer The-
ory, trans, education, masculinities, postcolonialism, homosexuality, heteronor-
mativity, discourse
DOI: dx.doi.org/10.25595/2050
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License.
Cover image: Judith Groth
Copy-editing, design and typesetting: Qwir text + design OG
Bibliographic information published by the German National Library: The Ger-
man National Library lists this publication in the National Bibliography. Detailed
bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
Table of Contents
Editorial ........................................................................................................................ 5
Astrid Biele Mefebue, Boka En, Sabine Grenz, Ksenia Meshkova, and Angeliki Sifaki
Dierence, Diversity, Diraction. Confronting Hegemonies and
Dispossessions .......................................................................................................... 11
Sabine Grenz
Social Movements, (Conicts of) Solidarity and Hope
through Collective Activity
Constructing Solidarity Across Dierence in Feminist Encounters .................... 18
Johanna Leinius
Queering Feminist Solidarities. #Metoo, LoSHA and the Digital Dalit ............... 39
Sara Morais dos Santos Bruss
Underground Pedagogy of Hope? German Punk-Feminist Festivals
as Education in Feminist Theories and Actions ..................................................... 59
Louise Barrière
Negotiating Gender and Sexuality: Representations,
Self-Identication and Post-Feminist Discourse
Sexual Politics on Behalf of LGBTIQ? Re_Production of Heteronormativity in
the German Debate about the Implementation of Sexual Diversity as a Topic
in School ..................................................................................................................... 81
Frauke Grenz
The Interactional Production of Narratives on Trans Categories. The Role
of Body Modications ............................................................................................ 100
Willian Maciel Krüger, Marcela Alberti, and Alexandre do Nascimento Almeida
The “Do-It-All Mother” – Discursive Strategies and Post-Feminist Alliances
in Parenting Magazines ......................................................................................... 118
Leila Zoë Tichy and Helga Krüger-Kirn
Recognition, Visibility and Representation
Namenskunde. Gender(re)konstruktionen in Autobiograen von
trans Personen ........................................................................................................ 134
Sandy Artuso
“Inhuman Acts of Lesbian Love”. The Stigmatization Process of Lesbianism
from Weimar Germany to KZ Ravensbrück ......................................................... 146
Giulia Iannucci
Political Representation of Women in Turkey. Institutional Opportunities
versus Cultural Constraints ................................................................................... 163
Burcu Taşkın
Varieties of Othering
Learning from Peripheric Feminisms. Othering, Reproductive Labor and
Strike Action............................................................................................................. 185
Juliana Moreira Streva
The Performative (Re)Production of Heteronormativity in Engineering ......... 200
Inka Greusing
Subjektivierung unter Bedingungen des antimuslimischen Rassismus ......... 211
Martina Tißberger
Feminist Security Studies and the Negotiation of Masculinity and
Migration ................................................................................................................. 227
Cita Wetterich
From Fiction to Reality back to Fiction:
Culture as a Potential Change Maker
Gay-Art and Super Putin. Subversive Armation in Contemporary
Russian Art ............................................................................................................... 246
Saltanat Shoshanova
Deconstructing Masculinities in the Classroom with George Miller’s
Film Adaptation of John Updike’s Novel “The Witches of Eastwick” ................. 267
Orquídea Cadilhe and Laura Triviño Cabrera
Fanction als utopische Praxis und (queere) Utopie? ........................................ 287
Denise Labahn
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Feminist Security Studies and the Negotiation
of Masculinity and Migration
Cita Wetterich (cita.wetterich@unibas.ch)
Abstract: This paper addresses the theoretical approach of feminist
security studies, a branch of the interdisciplinary eld of security studies.
Feminist security studies is part of a broader conceptualization of security.
It includes – but is not limited to – questions such as how womanhood and
gender are relevant for understanding security, why the assumption of a
link between women and peace, as well as between men and war, exists,
and how militarized language is inherently gendered. This paper engages
with the question of how male gender roles and masculinity within an (in)
security setting and connected issues are negotiated. It outlines dierent
categories that emerge within the existing literature. To illustrate, the
case of displacement and migration is explored in the second part of the
paper. By doing so, the paper elaborates the ways in which established
categories are applicable to newer elds of security. It does not neglect or
belittle the experiences of women or LGBTQ* individuals and communities
but rather argues for an all-encompassing approach within the eld of
feminist security studies.
Keywords: Feminist Security Studies, Masculinity, Victimhood, Migration,
Displacement
10th European Feminist Research Conference – Conference Proceedings
Cita Wetterich
Feminist Security Studies and the
Negotiation of Masculinity and Migration
Introduction1
Laura Sjoberg (2016) reacts to debates within and around feminist security
studies (FSS) with the request “that we remain attentive to the question of who
gets to be part of the conversation, and ask whose contestations are seen as
legitimate challenges to dominant ways of knowing both within and outside of
FSS” (Sjoberg 2016, 143pp.). The discussion was originally focused on inclusion/
exclusion of researchers with dierent (methodological and theoretical) back-
grounds as well as on intersectionality2 (Sjoberg 2016). In this paper, I want to
make an argument to engage with Sjoberg’s statement by explicitly including
research on men and masculinity in FSS and expanding the focus of research
on migration and displacement. It might seem controversial to give space
to men as subjects of research after ghting to shift the focus to long-time
under represented and underresearched groups (a list that includes but is not
limited to women and LGBQTIA* people). Still, I make the argument for an
all-encompassing gendered analysis of security and securitized topics. Only by
also doing research on men and masculinity can phenomena such as victim-
hood, conict, and experiences of violence be understood holistically.
Hence, the guiding question of this paper is how male gender roles and
masculinity within an (in)security setting and connected issues are negotiated
in academia. To do so, I engage with the case of displacement and migration. I
explore the ways in which, with the help of the rst research question, establis-
hed categories are applicable to newer areas of security studies.
I start with a brief overview of the broader theoretical frame – namely secu-
rity studies – and continue with a more detailed elaboration of feminist security
studies as a eld of research. I outline three main categories within feminist
research on men and insecurity: literature on sexualized violence and rape, lite-
rature on the LGBQTIA+ community and intersectionality, and literature on the
connection between military security and violence, masculinity, and the state.
Subsequently, I illustrate this line of thought using the case of male victimhood
during displacement.3 I explore how categories reemerge in all stages of displa-
1 I would like to thank Anna Starkmann and Julia Gurol for their helpful comments on earlier
versions of this article.
2 Intersectionality, here, is understood as focusing on the intersections of gender, race,
nationality, and class in global politics.
3 The case studies contain descriptions of violent and upsetting events that might be disturb-
ing to some.
Wetterich: Feminist Security Studies and the Negotiation of Masculinity and Migration
10th European Feminist Research Conference – Conference Proceedings
229
cement: before, during, and after the journey. I conclude that it is worthwhile to
explore men as individuals and a group not only in the role of perpetrators or
soldiers, but to also include situations of male insecurity and victimhood in FSS.
Additionally, a lot of academic work on male victimhood linked to conict and
military security can be transferred to newer elds in security studies, such as
displacement and migration. Hence, it is important to employ feminist approa-
ches and methodologies to displacement as a eld of security studies. Further-
more, having an all-encompassing approach within the eld and researching
experiences, processes and insecurities specically linked to men will help build
a holistic understanding of today’s migratory processes and mechanisms.
Theoretical Frame – (Feminist) Security Studies
Security is one of the most important and controversial phenomena, terms, and
concepts in international politics. It is omnipresent in today’s societies – be it
in regard to the war in Syria, in poverty ridden parts of Eastern Europe, or as a
feeling of (in)security when talking about issues such as climate change or mi-
gration. Within the social and political sciences, security is often referred to as
being an “essentially contested concept” (Gallie 1956) – meaning that there is
no commonly shared denition of it. While this might be true, scholars from dif-
ferent strands of thought still strive for an all-encompassing denition. Security
studies is understood as an area of inquiry loosely focused around a set of
basic but fundamental questions, the answers to which change with time. In
this research area, several strands of thought have emerged (Williams 2012, 2).
Security studies can oftentimes be seen as one of the most important subelds
of academic international relations (Williams 2012). Over time, dierent sub-
elds and developments in security studies have been distinguished. Therefore,
it is crucial to take into account who is in the position to dene security and
which topics should be put on the security agenda (Williams 2012, 2). Initially,
security studies were mostly limited to nation states and the interactions be-
tween them. Part of this complex of research were realist (e.g., Walt 19914) and
liberalist approaches (e.g., Fearon/Wendt 20025).
Things changed with the publication of Barry Buzan’s work “People, States
and Fear” (1987). Under the terminology of “broadening and deepening”, new
categories were introduced to security studies and with them, new topics – such
as environmental security, political security, economic security, and societal se-
curity – in addition to the traditional topic of military security (Williams 2012, 4).
4 For a more detailed description of realist security studies, see Walt (2017).
5 For a more detailed description, see Owen (2017).
Wetterich: Feminist Security Studies and the Negotiation of Masculinity and Migration
10th European Feminist Research Conference – Conference Proceedings
230
These new approaches loosely follow Buzan’s (1998) denition of security as
a social construct that is highly impacted by social norms and identities and is
brought into being through social interaction within specic social and/or his-
torical contexts or environments (cf., Wetterich 2018). Part of this development
was the emergence of constructivist (e.g., Farrell 2002) and critical security stu-
dies (e.g., Booth 2005; Vaughan-Williams/Peoples 2014) as well as feminist se-
curity studies (e.g., Tickner 1992; Wibben 2011), which draw on both previously
mentioned approaches. What all those subelds have in common is a specic
interest in the individual (and meso) level and the subjective experiences and
perceptions of (in)security.
Negotiation of Male Gender Roles and Masculinity
within Feminist Security Studies
Feminist security studies (FSS) is a branch of security studies. The eld inves-
tigates topics such as the specic roles assigned to men and women during
war and conict or the connotations of feminine or masculine attributes to cer-
tain behaviors within a security setting. More generally, researchers engage
with gender and gender relations in a security context. According to Judith Ann
Tickner (2006, 386pp.), the heterogenic eld of FSS contains some commonali-
ties regarding research questions and general approaches to research puzzles:
1) researchers ask feminist research questions, 2) the research is mostly based
on the experiences of women or the LGBQTIA+ community, 3) and the research
recognizes the necessity of self-reection and 4) an emancipatory cognitive in-
terest6.
FSS research usually focuses on women or other (highly) discriminated
groups7 and, for example, covers studies on gendered security language in mi-
litary contexts (Cohn 1987), on the role of prostitutes during the Vietnam war
(Moon 1997), or on gendered (in)security in conict and military interventions
(Sjoberg/Via 2010). Most of the time, the gendered lenses researchers use are
6 I follow the constructivist conceptualization of gender within FSS forwarded by Shepherd
(2013) (see also Gentry/Sjoberg 2011). Constructivist FSS makes a distinction between sex,
which is dened based on the body, and gender, which is dened based on socially con-
structed behavior. Following this line of thought, the connotations of feminine and mascu-
line play an important role because a person assigned to a certain sex/gender (e.g., male or
female) does not necessarily behave the way that is commonly expected of that designation
(e.g., masculine or feminine) (Shepherd 2013, 15).
7 Iddo Landau already highlighted the phenomenon of talking about “good women” and
“bad men” in 1997. This links back to Pierre Bourdieu’s (2001) understanding of the sexual-
ized topology of the socialized body that inuences the perception of social interactions and
portrayals of persons. Even though most researchers follow a constructivist understanding
of gender, oftentimes, a more nuanced understanding of whom to include in categories
such as women or men is dicult, as in many instances, no dierentiation is made between
gender and sex in interviews, news, and reports.
Wetterich: Feminist Security Studies and the Negotiation of Masculinity and Migration
10th European Feminist Research Conference – Conference Proceedings
231
specically directed towards “women and security” (instead of “women in need
of security”) (Lobasz 2014; Detraz 2013) to unravel the notion of women as pas-
sive bystanders or victims.
Still, FSS oers a great diversity of research on men and masculinity con-
nected to security with which I want to engage in more detail. To get a better
approach to the diverse literature within FSS, I clustered the research, based on
the results of a systematic literature review8 (Wetterich/Plänitz 2021), into three
main categories that are not exclusive. I inductively established the categories
after the selection and the search for (re)appearing commonalities and intersec-
tions, added important literature that was not shown as part of the systematic
search based on snowball sampling, and took into account the topic of migra-
tion and displacement, as well as the productivity of the established categories
for said eld of research. The categories are: 1) literature on sexualized violence
and rape, 2) literature on the LGBQTIA+ community and intersectionality, and
3) literature on the connections between military security, violence, masculinity,
and the state.
Before engaging more with the dierent categories, it is crucial to unders-
tand with which concepts FSS researchers work when they talk about masculi-
nity and male gender roles. Research usually approaches masculinity not as a
monolithic concept but rather as constantly changing and inuenced by politi-
cal, historical, social, cultural, and institutional settings and processes. Hence, a
multitude of dierent, sometimes overlapping, masculinities within the security
realm exists in all of the three above-mentioned categories, such as the “good
soldier”, the “rational economic man”, or the “breadwinner” (Blanchard 2014).
The concept of hegemonic masculinity is especially important in FSS and can be
dened as a dominant form of masculinity that legitimizes and shapes men’s
domination in the political, social, and cultural world order and thereby enforces
discrimination against other genders and forms of masculinity (Connell 2016).
Furthermore, the concept of “militarized masculinities” is of outmost import-
ance when talking about masculinity in FSS. This again links back to the ideal
8 Systematic literature reviews are gaining more acceptance in the social sciences (Petticrew/
Roberts 2006). They create the possibility of avoiding the “bias trap” in literature reviews
that is often inherent to traditional literature analysis because of a lack of clarity regarding
the literature selection criteria of authors (Plänitz 2019). Hence, there is a risk of reproduc-
ing the original authors’ biases when relying on existing literature analyses. This can be
avoided by systematically searching for existing literature. For the purpose of this paper,
a Boolean search was conducted with the “Web of Science Core Collection”. The literature
search was conducted in 2019 and included English-language peer-reviewed journal articles
and book chapters – which is a distinct limitation to the search. In an additional step, all
articles from the natural sciences, engineering, medicine, and psychology were excluded.
Then, search results were sorted by relevance. A time period of 2008–2019 was set. Articles
that were still in the set but obviously not part of the research interest (e.g., articles on bio-
diversity) were manually excluded. I used the following Boolean search string: “violen! OR
securit! OR threat! OR victim! AND male! OR men! OR mascul! AND feminist! OR gender!”
Wetterich: Feminist Security Studies and the Negotiation of Masculinity and Migration
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232
soldier’s being portrayed as a masculine warrior and the imposition of this type
of masculinity within the military. This constructed link between masculinity and
war helps to upvalue and make use of stereotypical masculine traits acquired
though military service and combat (Eichler 2014). Hence, there exists a specic
understanding of how men should behave according to their gender. The die-
rent forms of masculinities and the images they conjure also inuence the way
in which male gender roles are understood.
One aspect that becomes apparent in the literature is that the majority of
research on (in)security and men is centered around sexual abuse and sexua-
lized violence. Within this category of literature, a strong focus is placed upon
perpetrators (Williams/Bierie 2015), often male ones (e.g., Fleming et al. 2015
and Flood/Pease 2009). For example, several authors (Baaz/Stern 2009; Steiner
et al. 2009) investigate how male soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC) distinguish between dierent forms of rape and how these forms are
linked to masculinity and lead to dierent coping strategies. In another piece,
they engage with how male soldiers in the DRC negotiate a (perceived) femini-
zation of the military and how this might pose a threat to the gendered status
quo (Baaz/Stern 2011). There are also articles about the sexual assault of minors
– both male and female (Gagnier/Collin-Vézina 2016) – and the focus of said ar-
ticles is often on service provision and support systems (Chynoweth/Freccero/
Touquet 2017). Additionally, some articles explore the link between sexism and
rape (myths) (e.g., Suarez/Gadalla 2010 and Chapleau/Oswald/Russell 2008).
Additionally, although most research engages with men as perpetrators, there
is also research on male survivors of rape (Weiss 2010) as well as on the simila-
rities and dierences that exist between these events and the sexual assault of
women, such as in reporting behavior or the specic “masculine” ways in which
male survivors frame their experiences. Additionally, loss of face and of “mascu-
line identity” form a signicant part of this body of research (cf. Cheung/Leung/
Tsui 2009 and Chynoweth 2017b).
A second category is formed of the experiences of the LGBQTIA+ community
and the negotiation of masculinity within this context. This category includes re-
search that engages with violence against trans people (Schilt/Westbrook 2009;
Walker 2015) or with intimate partner violence in gay relationships (Nowinski/
Bowen 2012; Craft/Serovich 2005) and with how this violence is linked to (a
lack of) masculinity and manliness. An additional aspect that is mentioned wit-
hin this category is the impact of intersectional categories of violence (Bow-
leg 2013). Intersectionality is a concept that also emerges in other articles from
time to time (e.g., Shields 2008, Holvino 2010, and Turner 2017). Most of the
research engages with multiple dimensions of insecurity and violence for peo-
Wetterich: Feminist Security Studies and the Negotiation of Masculinity and Migration
10th European Feminist Research Conference – Conference Proceedings
233
ple who experience oppression at the intersections of race, gender, ethnicity,
sexuality, class, etc. Here, postcolonial and decolonial understandings overlap
with feminist thought on security and masculinity and play an important role
(Achilleos-Sarll 2018; Chisholm 2014; Soldatic 2015).9
When moving onto more state-and/or military-centered research, a third
category becomes apparent. This includes research on connections between
the remasculinization of the state and military security (Stachowitsch 2013b).
Saskia Stachowitsch also engages with the connotations and role attributions
relating to men and women within the military (Stachowitsch 2013a). Others
explore the ways heteronormative masculinities (re)create combat or protector
masculinity within the military (Kronsell 2016). Additionally, outside of milita-
ry security, researchers investigate which prevalent ideals of masculinity within
peace-building or the justice system exist. They explore how the international
system tries to deal with “violent masculinity” or “militarized masculinities”
in conict and how this translates to everyday life (Hamber 2016; Duriesmith/
Ismail 2019; Blackburn 2018).
As this literature review shows, there exists a multitude of dierent approa-
ches to men, masculinity and insecurity in FSS when connected to elds of re-
search that have a longer history within international relations and security stu-
dies. Hence, it substantiates this paper’s claim to the value of work explicitly on
male subjects, masculinity, and male gender roles and attributes. This holistic
understanding of feminist research and gender studies also needs to translate
to new areas of security research (Buzan 1987) and nd a reection in empirical
(case) studies.
Male Victimhood during Displacement and Migration
To illustrate how research on men and masculinity can be conducted in newer
elds of security as well as to highlight in more detail how this negotiation of
male gender roles and masculinity within a security setting can be done, this
article engages with one of the most prominent issues to have been securitized
in recent years displacement and migration. Specically, I explore displace-
ment, situations of insecurity, and the victimhood of male refugees before, af-
ter, and on the move. The example discussed explores the negotiation of male
insecurity within the very specic security settings of migration and displace-
9 Another possible category within the literature could be research centered around family,
violence, and conict. Accounts of violent behavior and neglect (cf. Asscher/van der Put/
Stams 2015) are part of this category, as is work on the evolution of gender roles with-
in a family context over time (cf. Goldscheider/Bernhardt/Lappegård 2015 and Pedulla/
Thébaud 2015).
Wetterich: Feminist Security Studies and the Negotiation of Masculinity and Migration
10th European Feminist Research Conference – Conference Proceedings
234
ment.10 I establish that situations of insecurity exist in all stages of migration
and displacement and manifest themselves in specic ways in relation to – or
are even solely reserved for – male refugees. Hence, feminist approaches and
methodology have the potential to allow an all-encompassing approach to dis-
placement as a eld of security and, within this eld, allow research on experi-
ences, processes, and insecurities specically linked to men.
Migration and displacement is a highly gendered eld, often focusing on
the experiences of female refugees, LGBQTIA+ people, and/or children. There
exists a growing (but not sucient) body of (feminist) research on experien-
ces of insecurity and its implications for women and LGBQTIA+ people during
migration (cf. Freedman/Kıvılcım/Özgür 2017). Jane Freedman (2016) outlines,
for example, the experiences of female refugees and the ways in which gen-
dered forms of violence, gendered divisions of space, and relations of power
create specic insecurities for these women. Others, such as Jennifer Lobasz
(2009) and Jef Huysmans (2006), engage with dierent aspects of gendered mi-
gration phenomena in the Mediterranean. In this context, male refugees as a
group of interest are not specically accentuated. Hence, victimhood is once
again reserved mostly to women and children. The ordeals of male refugees
are seldom specically emphasized as being potentially vulnerable to infrin-
gement and assault. If the experiences of male refugees are highlighted, it is
more often in the context of reports by international (non-)governmental or-
ganizations (Chynoweth 2019) than by authors in FSS. It is important to state
that female refugees and migrants are indeed victims of violence and subject to
very specic gendered experiences of insecurity. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile
to explore what happens to male refugees during this journey of insecurity. I
therefore want to help with what Jane Freedman (2016) calls overcoming the
dichotomous representation of the genders in conict and extend her state-
ment to the context of displacement and migration: “Just as men’s vulnerability
in some circumstances should be acknowledged, so too should women’s active
role and their agency in protecting and providing for families and communities”
(Freedman/Kıvılcım/Özgür 2017, 6). Periods of displacement are especially mar-
ked by situations of insecurity for all people. Refugees face common obstacles.
This entails (but is not restrained to) threats, violence, torture, extortion, a limi-
tation of resources, and being forced to live and travel illegally (UNHCR 2018).
It is important to note that these aspects of insecurity, while being relevant for
all groups of people, unfold in dierent ways, often connected to gender, and
10 I acknowledge that this case study might replicate some of the conation of gender and sex,
as it does not explicitly include trans and other non-cis men. This is a limitation of this paper
and should be explored in future research. Still, the aim of this paper is to make a claim for
more inclusiveness towards male individuals as subjects of interest within FSS.
Wetterich: Feminist Security Studies and the Negotiation of Masculinity and Migration
10th European Feminist Research Conference – Conference Proceedings
235
interact with subjective self-perceptions. Karen Weiss (2010) points this out in
her work on male survivors of sexualized violence in the Global North.
However, dierent stages of mobility (before, during, and after the move) can
be linked back to the categories that have been established during the discussion
of dierent streams within FSS: 1) literature on the connections between military
security and violence, masculinity, and the state; 2) literature on sexualized vio-
lence and rape; and 3) literature on the LGBQTIA+ community and intersectiona-
lity. Building a bridge between FSS and research on displacement and migration
allows the demonstration of the great potential of FSS approaches to newer elds
of security and the establishment of an all-encompassing approach when resear-
ching at the intersection of migration, displacement, security, and gender.
Male victimhood and forced migration do not start during displacement but
are already in place before. Here, the category engaging with militarized and
violent masculinities” is especially important. This entails another dimension
of violence, namely, the vulnerability of young men to forced recruitment and
the diculties that these young men may face in eeing forced recruitment
both in conict and during their journey (cf. Davis/Taylor/Murphy 2014). This
poses a variety of insecurities for forcibly recruited men. For example, in the
Syrian case, young men, especially when they are not accompanied by family,
are often not considered refugees because governments reproduce Islamopho-
bic portrayals of Muslim Arab men as potential terrorists and hence as security
risks (Turner 2017, 29). “This discrimination against men travelling alone derives
from the premise that single men and boys visibly detached from a family unit
pose a threat to security, whereas men who function as fathers, sons, brothers
and/or husbands do not.” (Davis/Taylor/Murphy 2014) This type of gendered
perception increases the vulnerability of these single men, who may be conside-
red as less in need or less worthy of support such as housing in refugee camps,
access to resources, or resettlement schemes, both during the journey and after
arriving in so-called “host” countries (Turner 2017). Forced recruitment and the
predicament it poses for male refugees is not limited to the Syrian case. Eritrea
is another example where young people face the threat of being involuntarily
drafted to the military – which often resembles a modern form of slavery. But as
a peace treaty with Ethiopia was achieved, public perception in the Global North
shifted to the view that things are improving in Eritrea and with that, Eritreans’
prospects for humanitarian protection declined. “In Europe, they’re using every
excuse to deny entry, deny asylum applications”, an informant told the Guardian
(Maclean 2018, 1). These examples of real insecurities for male refugees and the
way governments react to them can be linked back to the literature category
on the “violent masculinity” that is enforced within military structures (and has
Wetterich: Feminist Security Studies and the Negotiation of Masculinity and Migration
10th European Feminist Research Conference – Conference Proceedings
236
been critically elaborated on by Kronsell 2016). This assumed masculine beha-
viour that is internalized during a (forced) stay with the military diminishes the
chances for humanitarian support and aid tremendously and is linked back to
perceived threats to security for countries in the Global North. The assumptions
about a militarized refugee “other” are at times combined with racialized de-
scriptions criticized by postcolonial and decolonial scholars who describe male
refugees and migrants both as hypermasculinized and feminized in comparison
to a hegemonic masculinity of the Global North (Soldatic 2015; Bilgic 2015).
A drastic example speaking to the category on “sexualized violence and
rape”, demonstrating that sexualized violence against men has specic gende-
red implications, is the case of the systematic rape of male refugees in Libya.
Here, situations of violence and insecurity before moving and on the move have
been explored. Reports and newspaper articles have uncovered accounts of
men being raped with objects and male refugees being forced to rape and hu-
miliate other male prisoners within (illegal) prisons and reception centers while
being lmed and afterwards being extorted with said lms (Allegra 2017). Rape
and sexualized violence are always linked to gendered power relations and male
rape has specic gendered characteristics and implications. The motivation is
often described as “castrating the other”, making him less, or destroying whole
communities by making them “female” via rape (similar accounts have been
made in relation to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where rape as a wea-
pon of war was used also against men; see Apperley 2015). The experience of
rape and the implications of forced migration often pose a situation of multiple
insecurities and powerlessness for male refugees. Simultaneously, male refu-
gees try to maintain their role as bread winner and head of the family. To keep
their role and status within their family and/or community intact, most victims
decide to stay quiet. In an interview, an informant told the UNHCR, “With men
on men, they rst rape and then blackmail them. They threaten, ‘I will tell or
show this to the community if you tell anyone that we did this together.’ They
blackmail them into continued rape. I think many cases are like this but no one
wants to talk about it […] It’s not rare” (Chynoweth 2017b, 35). The reports and
accounts in newspapers intriguingly show that there exist in fact specic situa-
tions and experiences of insecurity and violence for men during displacement.
When linking this back to existing feminist literature on male victimhood in con-
ict and the specic implications this has on individuals and communities (Baaz/
Stern 2013), it illustrates the importance of all-gender inclusive research on dis-
placement and migration as newer elds of security.
Insecurity and violence are inherent in the last part of the journey of male
refugees as well. Refugees and migrants also become victims after they have
Wetterich: Feminist Security Studies and the Negotiation of Masculinity and Migration
10th European Feminist Research Conference – Conference Proceedings
237
arrived in an allegedly safe country. Here, intersectional aspects play a major
role. In Italy in particular, the situation has become more intense, due to the
new “migration and security” decree – also called the “Salvini law”, after Italy’s
far-right interior minister – that was written into law in November 2018. It res-
tricts humanitarian protection mostly to minors, victims of human tracking,
families, and people with mental or physical disabilities (Gostoli 2018). This of-
ten excludes male refugees that were traveling alone. Male minors that turn 18
in Italy may suddenly loose humanitarian protection and as a result become
classied irregular. Similar to the Syrian case, there is also the fear playing out
in European countries in the Mediterranean that the increase in refugee popu-
lation leads to an augmented risk of terrorist attacks (for the Italian case, see
Dixon et al. 2018, 10). Again, this reproduces the gendered description of male
Muslim Arab refugees as security threats and speaks to dierent discriminatory
descriptions based on religion, gender, race, and nationality. Additionally, male
refugees from Sub-Saharan Africa are subject to racialized and gendered dis-
courses and actions that have been enforced by the speeches of Salvini and ot-
her Lega11 representatives and even lead newspapers to title their news reports
on the “Salvini law” as “Xenophobia Meets Reality in Italy” (Robertson 2018).
Usually, being male is an advantage in the gendered categorization of intersec-
tionality. In the case of male refugees, most of the time, it poses a disadvantage
because men are not perceived as vulnerable but rather as threatening, which
means that their chances of humanitarian protection are signicantly worse
than those of female refugees. This increases their insecurity tremendously. To
link these discourses back to the theoretical discourse, I want to refer to Charli
Carpenter (2006, 2005), who points out the danger of a false dichotomy in re-
search on conict between men as combatants” or “security risks” and women
as “civilians” or “vulnerable” that reinforces gender inequalities and can lead to
an augmentation of insecurities for all genders. This statement also holds true
for the context of displacement. Additionally, the situation after displacement
links back to the literature category that partly engages with intersectionality
(cf. Shields 2008 and Holvino 2010). Quotes from Italian and other European
ocials show that impressions of male refugees are not only deeply gendered
but also that race and religion pose a problem for these politicians. This ma-
kes an intersectional approach even more important (cf. Dixon et al. 2018 and
Turner 2017).
In summary, situations of insecurity exist in all stages of migration and
displacement and manifest themselves in specic ways in relation to (or even
11 La Lega or Lega Nord is an important Italian political party that, under current leader Mat-
teo Salvini, has shifted increasingly to the right on issues such as crime and migration.
Wetterich: Feminist Security Studies and the Negotiation of Masculinity and Migration
10th European Feminist Research Conference – Conference Proceedings
238
solely reserved for) male refugees. Hence, it is important to employ feminist
approaches and methodology to displacement as a eld of security and, within
this eld, to have an all-encompassing approach – meaning research must be
undertaken on the experiences, processes, and insecurities of men specically.
Concluding Thoughts
This article engaged with the theoretical eld of feminist security studies. In this
last part, I want to underline that giving men further attention within FSS is worth-
while. This paper supports the claim that it is necessary to deconstruct common
pathways of pre-assigning stereotypical gender roles (“good women” and “bad
men”) and oppose statements that feminist research on men in passive roles or
as victims undermines feminist activism and serves a logic of excuse.
The guiding question of this paper was how male gender roles and mascu-
linity within an (in)security setting and around these issues are negotiated. To
answer this question, I engaged with the case of displacement and migration
to explore the ways in which with the help of the rst research question newly
established categories are applicable to newer elds of security.
In the rst part of the paper, I outlined three main categories linked to ma-
sculinity and insecurity within feminist research on security: 1) literature on se-
xualized violence and rape, 2) literature on the LGBQTIA+ community and inter-
sectionality, and 3) literature on the connection between military security and
violence, masculinity, and the state. In the second part of the paper, I showed
how these categories nd their reection in research on displacement and mig-
ration. I investigated how the categories reemerge in all stages of displacement:
before, during, and after the journey. This lets me conclude that it is worthwhile
to explore men as individuals and groups, especially at the intersection with ne-
wer elds of security. Situations of male insecurity and victimhood are a fruitful
area of research within FSS. Additionally, much academic work that has already
been done on male victimhood linked to conict and military security can be
transferred to these newer elds of security, such as displacement and migra-
tion. Hence, this paper gives a good overview of what common lines of discus-
sion miss out on in terms of information and experiences (which is surely not
limited to the experiences of men in situations of insecurity but extends also to
other – minority – groups). The intention of this article was in no way to contri-
bute to a logic of excuse using research about male experiences of (sexualized)
violence within and outside of feminist security studies or to diminish the orde-
als of women and LGBQTIA+ people. I rather advocate for an all-encompassing
perspective that takes into account intersectional factors.
Wetterich: Feminist Security Studies and the Negotiation of Masculinity and Migration
10th European Feminist Research Conference – Conference Proceedings
239
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