Original version

BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Thinking Allowed

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Science & Nature

BBC Radio 4 LW

Thinking Allowed: Women and the Armed Forces

03/04/2013

Women and the Armed Forces

BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, Women and the Armed Forces

Laurie Taylor explores gender and the military as women go into the frontline of battle.

Women and the Armed Forces: Laurie Taylor explores gender and the military in the light of the US decision to allow women into the frontline of battle.

Women in combat - the US secretary of defence announced in January 2013 that, from 2016, women will be allowed to serve in ground-combat roles in the US armed forces. The UK is likely to soon be faced with the need to make a similarly historic decision.

Laurie Taylor talks to Anthony King, Professor in Sociology at the University of Exeter; Christopher Coker, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Joanna Bourke, Professor of History at Birkbeck College.

This special programme explores the history of the female soldier and the implications of women's increasing involvement on the 'frontline'. How central is war to cultural definitions of masculinity and femininity? Is there something stubbornly masculine at the centre of the dominant, military ethos with its emphasis on courage, honour and valour? Or are these questions becoming redundant as the nature of war itself changes, so that an emphasis on the winning of' hearts and minds' in the Afghanistan context and elsewhere, could be said to signify a feminisation of war? And is the growth in technology assisted warfare actually sidelining the 'human' altogether, regardless of gender.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Thinking Allowed

Women and the Armed Forces

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4