Faciltation: “Chapter 15: Militarism; Structural and Interpersonal Violence,” Humanity Books: Prometheus Books, 2004, 343-367.

Key Words: militarism, structural violence, interpersonal violence, domestic violence, homophobic violence, unemployment, civilian, minority groups, weapons, defense spending, security, business community, social spending, economically privileged, federal government, local government, war, homelessness, U.S military, Department of Homeland Security, sexual assaults, hierarchy, paramilitary activists, egalitarian, Counterintelligence Program, Department of Justice, intimidation, deportation, political manipulation

Key Phrases: monies expended on the military, nonprofit public sector, after-school programs, withholding food and shelter from those who can not afford it, fighting terrorism, anti-Communist fundamentalists forces, Department of Homeland Security, force is the way to achieve goals, probable homophobic, assertively heterosexual, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, sexual misconduct, severe aggression, atmosphere of intimidation

Key Names: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Martin Luther King Jr., The Taliban, John J. Pavlick, Bill Clinton, Barry Winchell, Jeff Cooper, Jose E. Serrano, Katie Sierra

Key Ideas: There were many ideas of anti-militarism in Chasin’s article, and she made it clear on her stand point of what the military and the militarism culture has done to American society. Militarism has contributed to a lack in funding in health care, funding for schools, funding for after-school programs, and has heavily taken away from what is called social spending. Militarism has also contributed to an increase in homophobic tendencies, and domestic violence. These acts are fueled by the violent culture that is instilled in the training to become apart of the millenarian culture. A “real man” is one that is powerful through violence, internal and external, and one that has dominance over the weaker species that is women. This leads to the military in the U.S contributing to rape and sexual assaults against women, whether that is in the home, or with fellow peers in one’s academy. Yet, most of these assaults, even when it comes to rape, go unreported, out of a fear of social rejection from such a tight-knit society that is so honored and praised within American culture. The military, and massive funding for it, comes from the ideas of being a true “patriot” for the land of the free and the brave, which is what our society is so proudly unique and built upon, yet the violent culture that militarism creates ironically silences many. This silencing includes those that are of homosexual orientation in the military, which has lead to not just sever beatings and harassment, but death as well. So Chasin asks her audience the ultimate question, is the military truly contributing to protecting our country and benefiting our freedom as a whole?

This article contributes in a variety of ways to gender studies in many ways, and one that I personally found most interesting was how much the article centered on the formation of what masculinity truly is in American society, and how ironically small that description has become. Chasin mentions how sergeants in the military, when training future soldiers to become “real men”, they call them “sissy’s, pussys, and girls”. As an insulting maneuver, many drill sergeants call the men that are in training “ladies”. Why is this? What is so degrading and weak about women? Why is it so insulting? The majority of this article argues how the military has crippled society financially and morally, and has increased a censored culture that praises the “war on terror” over truly protecting our culture and increasing our freedom as a nation.

When it comes to internal violence…
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half-billion bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than eight thousand people…Is there no other way the world can live?” (Eisenhower 345).

What are other ways to defend our homeland against attacks? Do you think we would have less need for violent weapons if we as a nation spent more money on feeding and sheltering those in need? Why is war so recognized and honored in American culture? What does that say about what we value? What do we value in men and women as separate genders in the millenarian culture?


“After-school programs for about five hundred thousand students will end; the cost of these was $400 million. This amount is about the cost of two F/A fighter jets. The Air Force is requesting twenty-two of these at a total cost of 5.2 billion. The United States already has the strongest air force in the world, with five thousand planes and at least eight thousand helicopters. How many are needed to protect us from countries with far less air power? Since the peak hours for youth crime and drug use in between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. the cuts to after-school programs mean there will probably be more juvenile crime” (347).

What does this say about what American culture values? Does the instilment of violence contribute to the crime that happens after school, or is it the fact that children have no funding for a constructive outlet?