Wars, Wimps, and Women: Talking Gender and Thinking War

In Carol Cohn's article, "Wars, Wimps, and Women: Talking Gender and Thinking War", she talks about the differences between discourse of men and women. In a game simulated to portray the realities of war, Cohn was placed on a team who ultimately decided to pull its troops out of Afghanistan, based on careful reasoning, strategy, and morality. In the end, Cohn's team was defeated by another team who used who violent and aggressive war tactics. A member of another team mentioned that he saw weakness in Cohn's team when they decided to pull their troops out, and thus, knew he could walk all over them and push them around. This member of the other team continued on to say that after his team militantly nuked Cohn's team and they didn't retaliate, he knew that they were just wimps, so they continued to nuke Cohn612). The aggressive and violent tactics carried out by the opposing team silenced the tactics that were based upon logic and reason, on the foundation that they were "insufficiently masculine". (Cohn 613). Cohn states, "You learn that someone is being a wimp if he perceives an international crisis as very dangerous and urges caution; if he thinks it might not be important to have just as many weapons that are just as big as the other guy's; if he suggests that an attack should not necessarily be answered by an even more destructive counterattack; or, until recently, if he suggested that making unilateral arms reductions might be useful for our own security. All of these are 'wimping out' "(Cohn 613). Upon reading this, I really got to thinking about our government and its decisions in the ongoing war in the middle east that was heightened by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Is our government simply retaliating with weapons and firearms on the basis that it is what is considered to be masculine, and therefore, acceptable? Are logic, reason, and morality tossed aside because these qualities give off a "wimpy" representation? When and where do we draw the line between proving masculinity and doing what is right on behalf of our country?

https://bblearn.missouri.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-775810-dt-content-rid-13853305_1/courses/sociology_3320_av/Cohn%20-%20Wars%2C%20Wimps%2C%20and%20Women%20-%20Talking%20Gender%20and%20Thinking%20War.pdf