Research Paper Title

Warrior Heroes and Little Green Men: Soldiers, Military Training and the Construction of Rural Masculinities.

Abstract

This paper examines how a particular rural masculinity, termed here the ‘warrior hero’ model of military masculinity, is produced through the process of military training in the British Army. The paper outlines how the concept of masculinity is used, and argues for the utility of the notion of ‘rural masculinity’ in the examination of the interaction between social constructions of masculinity and rurality, before outlining the salient features of the model of the warrior hero identified in the literature on militarism and gender identities. The paper then goes on to examine how this warrior hero is constructed in the process of military training, and argues that the rural as both location and social construction feeds into the development of this model. The paper concludes by questioning the political consequences, both for rural life and for the armed forces, of this hegemonic model of masculinity.

Reference

Woodward, R. (1999) Warrior Heroes and Little Green Men: Soldiers, Military Training and the Construction of Rural Masculinities. Available from World Wide Web: http://eprint.ncl.ac.uk/file_store/production/62676/E50E4E51-F512-4D7B-9C62-7D3181901121.pdf. [Accessed: 23 August, 2013].