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How Militarism Teaches Our Children That Violence Is Normal

Erin Steuter, Ph.D.; and Geoff Martin, Ph.D.

Culture of Militarism Perpetuated Through Popular Culture

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January 10, 2019 / Erin Steuter, Ph.D.; and Geoff Martin, Ph.D. / National Council on Family Relations - The rise of violence and the gun culture in the United States and Canada cannot be separated from the rise in militarism, which is the belief that a country must maintain a strong military capability and must use, or threaten to use, force to protect and advance national interests. Militarism may appear to be a response to the external world, but it has significant internal social consequences. Retired Army Lt. Col. and military historian Andrew Bacevich (2005) pointed out that U.S. residents are enthralled with military power, and he warned that this can “endanger our security at home” (p. 225). He defined a “culture of militarism” as a situation in which the political leadership’s first response is to any challenge is to consider military force. The government counts on significant public support and uses popular-culture symbols to cultivate it. After 9/11, it became normal for patriotic fervor to once again be communicated through toys and entertainment.

War: A Women's Issue

Women's March on the Pentagon

 

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Women's March on the Pentagon

The reasons that the Women's March on the Pentagon is a women's march are many. Not only is there a historical precedent for a women-led antiwar march, women from all walks of life, from countries that have both been victims of and aggressors in conflict, from past generations or those living today, are adversely affected by war at far a greater rate than men. These claims are supported by statistics though those same statistics and realities of war are often swept under the rug or excused as necessary collateral damage. It is time for all victims of war to be acknowledged and for the victimization of women to end.

In 2004, Common Dreams reported that "women and children account for almost 80% of the casualties of conflict and war as well as 80% of the 40 million people in world who are now refugees from their homes." But the harm done to women due to conflict does not simply stop there. For generations, women have been traded as goods, their bodies treated as commodities or objects free for the taking, not only during actual combat but simply when they are at or in the vicinity of a military base.

Irene Khan of Amnesty International states that "women and girls are not just killed, they are raped, sexually attacked, mutilated and humiliated. Custom, culture and religion have built an image of women as bearing the 'honour' of their communities. Disparaging a woman's sexuality and destroying her physical integrity have become a means by which to terrorize, demean and 'defeat' entire communities, as well as to punish, intimidate and humiliate women."

 

Women's March on the Pentagon

NNOMY Steering Committee

 

On October 21st, 2018 Women and Men Marched on the Pentagon.and the Pentagon is Marching on Generation Z in their Social Media, Video Games, and in their Public Schools to Sell them on Perpetual War. The domestic side of the Pentagon's reach into our lives is its efforts to recruit our youth into military service either in body or mind. The Women's March on the Pentagon is a demand for a sustainable world, where resources are not squandered on the business of war but redirected into human needs and not into corporate greed at the cost of enormous suffering at home and abroad. The other war front of the Pentagon is in our public schools where military recruiters troll for new recruits. This is another Pentagon that requires the demand for community activism to regulate access to our children and to limit the influence of militarized programs that masquerade as educational opportunities. Programs like JROTC, Young Marines, DoD Starbase and DoD STEM are a means of recruitment and indoctrination into a military ethos that normalizes war in young minds and ensures the continuation of the military and defense industry control over our national economy.

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