Rabies without a womb

Thought about an interesting way to look at war - as an inversion of gender roles. So in a peaceful life, women can experience a lack of subjectivity. The woman is often the object, whether it be the object of abuse, the object of courtship, or the object of salvation ("damsel in distress"). Even childbearing can be seen as a form of turning into an object (you are 9 months dependent on another being in your own body). This is what feminists talk about: women live in fear of objectification, from violence to unwanted pregnancies. Men's life against this background is not that good, but culture prescribes men a little more power over themselves, plus men are less dependent on the vagaries of their biology.

However, everything changes when the war comes. Now men are seized on the streets, sent to no one knows where and no one knows why. Some unknown thing flies there from the sky - and the men return in plastic bags. Just no power over your life and destiny. Zero out of ten subjectivity. Now, men running from a fellow military commissar are experiencing everything that women used to experience, only at maximum speed. Up to the recommendations "do not walk there and there" (and do not wear a short skirt). Now it is women who have greater subjectivity: some take out and hide draft dodgers, others collect them for helmets and armor. Everyone saves "husbands in trouble."

Here we can observe the harm of gender stereotypes. Under normal circumstances, be courageous, athletic, etc. - it's more beneficial. But today it may mean that you have category A - and you are the first candidate for meat processing. It is the same with values: for sure, many of those who now dutifully went to the military registration and enlistment office were guided by thoughts like "be a man", "run ashamed", "what to be, that cannot be avoided." The same gender stereotypes with an admixture of barracks stoicism. In general, the more you pumped your masculinity and listened to all sorts of garage dads, the more chances are now that you will replenish the demographic gap that awaits Russia in the coming years. Then how will those who demonstrate "female" reactions survive - run, hide, cheat, etc.? It is also easy to see that the call to "be a man" in time of war sounds suspiciously like the call to "be a real woman" in peacetime - it is a generous offer to self-internalize oneself as an object.

And, finally, the very first and massive case of the loss of subjectivity on the part of men can be called the First World War, when hundreds of thousands of mobilized men found themselves in trenches and died from long-range artillery shells without even seeing the enemy. All this backfired in the form of mass mental disorders: paralysis, psychosis, dumbness, uncontrolled aggression, etc. Doctors then often accused such soldiers of cowardice and prescribed savage methods of treatment (electric shock, hydrotherapy). They also made the humiliating diagnosis of "hysteria", which was considered a typical "female" disease. “Hysteria” has an interesting history in general - for a long time, almost any mental disorder in women was called that, attributing them to “womb rabies”, which happens if the uterus is not used for its intended purpose. However, it turned out that even without any womb, men deprived of subjectivity can suffer the same. Perhaps the desire to shoot not at those who are ordered can be attributed here. Rabies without a uterus.

Mihail Pojarsky 16/10/2022