Mobilizing military motherhood: Negotiating support, activism and politics in the U.S. War on Terrorism

To examine the question of how gender organizes political relationships, I analyze how the mothers of current U.S. service members negotiate the intersection between their personal/private concern for their children and the public/political issue of war. Through an online ethnography of military mothers' support forums, interviews of 55 mothers of service members, and content analysis of Department of Defense recruitment and deployment material that targets mothers, I examine how mothers of service members make sense of their experiences within the context of the military institution, and how this shapes their participation in democratic processes.;This research provides insight into the process of creating public war support while subverting women's active citizenship. I argue that the military, in targeting mothers for supportive roles, encourages them not only to feel proud of their child's decision to enlist but also to feel as if they are enlisted in the military along with their children. While some are publicly vocal against the war, many of the mothers who are critical of war remove themselves from engaged citizenship. These mothers silence their anti-war views in the belief that it is their duty, like that of those in the armed services, to be publicly apolitical. This shows how the concerns of mothers for their service member children are used to limit their gendered claims to political authority and undermine their ability to act as citizens.;I also show that the internet provides the technological means to subdue and exclude viewpoints that do not fit with the dominant discourse. While the internet makes it easier for military families to communicate with service members, it also offers new ways for shaping and constraining their wartime experiences. When ideologies like patriotism and "supporting the troops" are mobilized not merely by the Department of Defense but also by mothers' own groups online, points of view do not fit with these dominant discourses are silenced. By uncovering the mechanisms through which individuals censor anti-war views, this research further contributes to scholarship on the suppression of democratic debate during wartime.