Rather, it is not always possible to disentangle labour and love: often, acts of labour are also acts of love and much of love is labour (Lynch 2007). That is, when I say that labour is hidden by the label of love, I do not wish to suggest that love and labour are always easily separable things or that one can simply conceal the other, love placed in front of labour like a mask. Moreover, it also creates space to think about how militarism is enacted through love. My analysis, that is, reveals how labour is hidden in plain sight in these autobiographical narratives, and that this has a depoliticizing impact. In the British military context specifically I argue that the framing of this labour as love, interwoven with the idea that outsiders cannot understand life in a military family, contributes to the closing down of space for critique of the military. In civilian settings, the framing of domestic labour as love serves to obscure women’s contributions to political economic structures. I argue, however, that even while military wives’ labour is highlighted in these narratives, it is simultaneously made invisible as labour through its framing, instead, as acts of love (see Basham and Catignani 2018, 160 Hyde 2014). In this article, I analyse published autobiographical accounts charting the lives of civilian women married to servicemen that, on the face of it, make strong, public claims for recognizing the importance of the domestic labour performed by these women. So what happens when the labour performed by British military wives is recognized in public narratives? Does this open up space for a critique of gendered militarism? The silence that blankets military wives’ labour, however, is not complete. Feminists have argued that the invisibility of this labour in public narratives contributes to the normalization of military power. Like women’s domestic labour in other settings, however, this labour is often made invisible, so that its importance to the functioning of militaries, and therefore to the exercise of military power on the global stage, goes unseen. In addition, I argue that paying attention to how militarism functions not only through fear and suffering but also through love helps to flesh out our analyses of militarism and war as social institutions.Īs feminist scholars have now compellingly demonstrated, armed organizations of multiple types, including the British military, rely heavily on the unpaid reproductive labour of civilian women married to servicemen. Taken together with the idea that outsiders cannot fully understand life in a military family, I demonstrate how this framing serves to close down space for critique of the military. In my analysis, however, I explore how the texts simultaneously make claims about the importance of this labour and make it invisible as labour by positioning it, instead, as acts of love. These texts are often centred around descriptions of domestic labour and, moreover, make overt claims about its importance to the institution itself. The silence surrounding military wives’ unpaid labour, however, is not complete, and this article explores how such labour is represented in autobiographical accounts written by British military wives. This labour does not often feature in public understandings of how the military functions, and feminists have argued that its invisibility contributes to the naturalization of military power. The British military institution, like other armed organizations worldwide, relies heavily on the unpaid domestic labour performed by civilian women married to its servicemen.
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