Though you’d have a hard time getting a military leader to admit it, some wartime strategies specifically target the enemy’s women and children.
This is the premise of Laura Sjoberg’s recently published book “Kill the Women First: Gender and Civilian Victimization.” A Monday campus lecture shone a light on a little-discussed tragedy of many wars: the targeting of civilians, especially women, for victimization.
Sjoberg, assistant professor at the University of Florida, gave a lecture on campus as part of Young Scholar’s Program, presented by the School of Public and International Affairs.
The focus of the lecture was civilian victimization in war; it’s been suspected that women are often targeted during war to gain a strategic advantage, and not merely a coincidence. According to Sjoberg, civilian killing in war is not always accidental.
“Theoretically, targeting civilians is supposed to be a bad strategy. But, practically, in actual war situations, civilian extermination is not always accidental but in fact is intentional,” she said.
“This is difficult to comprehend, but we have significant historical facts that indicate this way of planning in a war,”Sjoberg said.
“This intentional choice may have many reasons to it, like the regime. Such decisions may also result in the war getting over quickly or, if not taken, may prolong the war significantly,” Sjoberg said.
In order to support her claim, Sjoberg gave some statistical analysis on some of the significant effects of World War I and World War II.
Sjoberg said “the strategies used in the British blockade on Germany in World War I clearly indicate that women were considered to be the center of gravity of a civilization, and hence a great number of casualties were women. Similar cases were studied in World War II.”
“I believe that civilians are merely proxy for women. The main idea is to attack women to indirectly weaken the opponents, as women play an important role in state and nation, both physically and socially,” Sjoberg said.
Of course, there are not a lot of armies or nations that would admit to targeting women during wartime, Sjoberg said.
“No one would want to state the facts directly, especially when such strategies play important role in the outcome of the war,” Sjoberg said.
Sjoberg said “obviously, it is not always the women who die in war. Even [civilian] men may be harmed, but they are many times not the actual targets.”
According to Michael Cobb, associate professor in public and international affairs, such topics are frequently neglected and not given importance.
“It is interesting when scholars bring such issues in front of people. Such cases occur commonly in war, but somehow they are neglected,” Cobb said.
“I think this talk was very useful and I was pleased with the turnout of students,” Cobb said.
Luke Skelton, a student in political science, said the topic and speaker were compelling.
“The topic was really interesting and provided an opportunity for students to have a different point of view when they think about war in general,” Skelton said.
Sjoberg, who will be on campus for a week, said she is having a good time in Raleigh so far.
“I will be here for a week and will have public speeches elsewhere on campus. I am enjoying the campus till now and learning a lot from the students and faculty at N.C. State,” Sjoberg said.
