A state's ability to maintain mandatory conscription and wage war rests on the idea that a "real man" is one who has served in the military. Yet masculinity has no inherent ties to militarism. The link between men and the military, argues Maya Eichler, must be produced and reproduced in order to fill the ranks, engage in combat, and mobilize the population behind war. In the context of Russia's post-communist transition and the Chechen wars, men's militarization has been challenged and reinforced. Eichler uncovers the challenges by exploring widespread draft evasion and desertion, anti-draft and anti-war activism led by soldiers' mothers, and the general lack of popular support for the Chechen wars. However, the book also identifies channels through which militarized gender identities have been reproduced. Eichler's empirical and theoretical study of masculinities in international relations applies for the first time the concept of "militarized masculinity," developed by feminist IR scholars, to the case of Russia.
"This is an outstanding contribution to scholarship on gender and militarism in Russia. Eichler weaves together an excellent, historically-grounded interpretation of many important aspects of militarism in Russia (such as conscription, dedovshchina, the activism of soldier's mothers, and treatment of Chechen war veterans). This book should be standard reading for anyone interested in understanding
University of British Columbia
"Anyone interested in Russia's struggles today will want to read Eichler's work to understand better the deep ambivalences riveting Russian society and the state's attempts to mobilize different ideologies (especially masculine ones) to try to knit that society together again."
The Russian Review
"Her analytical focus on militarism and militarization as a framework to understanding these transformations is undoubtedly useful to both researchers of post-Soviet Russia and to scholars interested in war and masculinity…Here also lies the strength of Militarizing Men: in charting the relations between gender, war, and citizenship as these have played out for Samara's men and women, Eichler poin
