Soldatinnen in der Geschichte: Weibliche Verletzungsmacht als Herausforderung

This introduction of the 2011 German volume Soldatinnen: Gewalt und Geschlecht im Krieg vom Mittelalter bis heute (Female Soldiers: Violence and Gender in War from the Middle Ages to the Present), edited by the historians Klaus Latzel. Silke Satjukow and Frank Maubach,  discusses the state of research and the conceptualization of female soldiers. They argue that  combat was the line drawn to separte "real" male soldiers from armed women and female army members until the late twentieth century. The volumn is based on a conference that took place  in Jena, Germany, in 2008 in cooperation with the Working Group of Military History. It explores the participation of women in the violence to kill in regular and irregular combat units. The mobilization and self-mobilization of women, their expectations of the deployment and their experiences in war, the short and long-term consequences for civil and military gender relations as well as for the manner of waging war.