Other structures of state violence – such as police, prisons and borders – utilise militarised masculinities to police, guard, enforce, control and kill on behalf of the interests of capital, privilege and power. Capitalism is at the heart of these institutions – the military, the carceral system and border “enforcement” are all meant to protect and serve the extraction of capital, and the suppression of human beings who produce that capital. In this process, the state perpetuates militarised masculinities within these structures, creating soldiers, police and others who enact power through violence.

But the violence of those employed by these institutions also perpetuates militarised masculinities in the wider population: the harms created by these structures exacerbate harms committed in the world, in particular by those looking to survive the patriarchal, racist, militarised system, and those looking to achieve their own power and wealth though violence – ie those the state considers “criminals”.

Both sides of this equation – the state and the “criminal class” – claim to offer protection or security through violence. Of course, this only begets more violence, not security. Life in the capitalist system imposes economic inequalities and poverty; climate change and conflict; colonial controls and imperialist wars. The state’s structures of violence are built to contain and control the majority, who struggle to survive this system. Harm, violence and brutality are the result within this cycle of violence, that celebrates and facilitates militarised masculinities at all levels. Militarised masculinities extend beyond the military………….

WUNRN

ABOLISHING MILITARISED MASCULINITIES

Direct Link to Full 48-Page 2022 Publication:

https://www.wilpf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/RL_10-Abolishing-militarised-masculinities-AW.pdf