Gender, Orientalism, and the ‘War on Terror'

Maryam Khalid is a Lecturer and the Director of the Bachelor of International Studies program at Macquarie University, Australia. Her research is focused on global politics, security, and popular culture, exploring gender, sexuality, and race as processes, practices, and analytical lenses in and across international relations and global governance discourses.

1. Introduction

Identities in the ‘War on Terror’

Discourse: language, identity, power, and representation

Analytic strategy

Outline of the book

2. Gender, Orientalism, and Global Politics

Orientalism and gender as discourseRe-reading Said

‘American orientalism’

Orientalism, race, and gender

Conclusion

3. Gender, Race, ‘Self’, and ‘Other’ in Histories of International Intervention

Imperialism, liberalism and the US

Liberal internationalism and the pre-1945 international system

The ‘underdeveloped’ south in early liberal internationalism

Intervention, development, and the threat of the ‘Other’

Democratisation, humanitarianism, and the responsibility to protect

4. Constructing the US ‘Self’ in ‘War on Terror’ Discourse

‘Self’, nation, race, and gender

Masculinity and the US ‘Self’

Reading femininity(ies) in the US ‘Self’

Conclusion

5. Gendered Orientalist Narratives: Afghanistan

‘Saving’ Afghanistan

Constructions of the ‘Other’

Developing the narrative: Operation Enduring Freedom

Conclusion

6. Gendered Orientalist Narratives: Iraq

Consolidating gendered orientalist discourse

‘Liberating’ Iraq

The sexuality of the ‘Other’

Conclusion

7. Conclusions