MESA Banner
A Man of His Word: Text-Informed Reconstructions of Masculinity and War-Fighting in Revolutionary Algeria
Abstract
In order to develop a more robust fighting force prior to the Battle of Algiers, the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) established a communications campaign that sought to deconstruct those gender roles which limited their soldierly forces on the basis of gender. As has been well documented, women played a unique role in the Algerian War of Independence, particularly during the Battle of Algiers. In addition to serving traditional support roles, women made up two-percent of the Armée de Libération Nationale’s paramilitary forces. While existing scholarship unpacks how Algerian women learned of the different roles they were to assume at wartime, there is a gap in the knowledge related to how men knew to embrace these changing gendered expectations, rather than resist them in the name of maintaining their own privilege. In other words, what remains to be understood is why and how men knew to make room for female warfighters amongst their ranks. In the decades leading to the war, Algerians living under French occupation conformed to the French ideation which tied masculinity to violence, fighting, and physical strength. Therefore in order for women to act as warfighters, traditional gender roles had to be complicated. This complication was motivated by a desire to integrate women into warfighters, and informed by a recognition that Algerian men presently understood themselves to be the vanguard. This research investigates how men learned to embrace female warfighters. Utilizing El Moudjahid, the FLN’s communications bulletin, as my primary source, I argue that the FLN intentionally used gendered language as well as illustrated and articulated depictions of warfighters that introduce their supporters to the idea of men and women operating in similar capacities. Situated at the intersection of social-formation and feminist theory, this research hopes to illuminate the ways in which text informs reality, particularly in the context of gender roles in the Algerian War for Independence.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Algeria
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries