Article | 2007
Abstract
Mothers, Monsters, Whores provides an empirical study of women’s violence in global politics. The book looks at military women who engage in torture; the Chechen ‘Black Widows’; Middle Eastern suicide bombers; and the women who directed and participated in genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda. Sjoberg & Gentry analyse the biological, psychological and sexualized stereotypes through which these women are conventionally depicted, arguing that these are rooted in assumptions about what is ‘appropriate’ female behaviour. What these stereotypes have in common is that they all perceive women as having no agency in any sphere of life, from everyday choices to global political events.