A Field Guide for Female Interrogators

by Coco Fusco

The world was shocked by the images that emerged from the Abu Ghraib scandal. Lynndie England, the young female army officer shown smiling devilishly as she humiliated male prisoners, became first a scapegoat and then a victim who was "just following orders." Ignored were the more elemental questions of how women are functioning within conservative power structures of government and the military. Why do the military and the CIA use female sexuality as an interrogation tactic, and why is this tactic downplayed and even ignored in internal investigations of prisoner abuse?

Combining an art project with critical commentary, Coco Fusco imaginatively addresses the role of women in the war on terror and explores how female sexuality is being used as a weapon against suspected Islamic terrorists. Using details drawn from actual accounts of detainee treatment in US military prisons, Fusco conceives a field guide of instructional drawings that prompts urgent questions regarding the moral dilemma of torture in general and more specifically about how female sexuality is used. Finally, Fusco assesses what these matters suggest about how the military and the state make use of sex, sexuality, and originally feminist notions of sexual freedom.

Coco Fusco is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist and writer. She is the author of English is Broken Here: Notes on Cultural Fusion in the Americas, and editor of Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas and Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self (with Brian Wallis). A recipient of a 2003 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, she is an associate professor at Columbia University.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Art, History, Womens Studies

145 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2008

Reviews

[Justin Goodman · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the framing of the opening essay as a letter to Virginia Woolf doesn't hide that it is just an essay that ocasionally interrupts the argument to say "Virginia," it's depressing how relevant and transgressive this book remains today (as well as the accompanying performance piece/speech Fusco gave in 2007 featured in the book). A one day read worth and very much worth the day.

[Madi Wall · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the most interesting books i have ever read! i’m inclined to agree with Fusco’s thoughts that women have these roles because of American perceptions of women. also didn’t realize that many interrogators were former Mormon missionaries, because they can speak many languages!

[Siân Drew · Rating 2 out of 5]

not a fan of the ‘dear Virginia style’ as i hate the essay this is in response to. v interesting

[Jonathan Hunter]

Read for class

[tatum h · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt like I got the point 50 pages in. It should have either been way shorter, or way longer, expanding more into how this idea of weaponizing the ideals of third wave feminism has lasting impacts - maybe connect it to how a woman's sexuality has been capitalized on? i did find the topic fascinating, as it was something I had never even heard about, but this could have been executed much better.

[Dylan Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting piece, well-researched and well-stated. It exposes a side of US military interrogation that I had previously never heard of and offers important commentary on it.

[julia reste]

Doesn't feel right to rate this one. I think it is so interesting that I learned none of this history until now. I love Coco Fusco and I love this piece.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems to me that our culture lacks a precise political vocabulary for understanding women as self-conscious perpetrators of sexual violence. We rely instead on moralistic language about virtue, privacy, and emotional vulnerability to define female sexuality, or on limited views that frame women's historical condition as victims.

This was a very interesting read about the weaponizing of female sexuality, specifically in the context of US military torturing methods.
Coco Fusco obviously talks about patriarchal systems that exploit feminist ideals, which is not very surprising. But the author also talks about the skewed and difficult way we culturally perceive (or don't) sexual violence from female perpetrators, and the way we generalized and gendered the concepts of victim and perpetrator, which is a fascinating subject.

I don't know if I agree with everything Coco writes here, but it nonetheless was a very engaging and pretty thought-provoking short read.

[Chelsea Szendi · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is nothing inherent to women that makes them agents for peace/non-violence. (One should note there's nothing inherent to "women" at all). But it's a feature in the U.S. and other similarly socialized national news media (Japan) to react with exaggerated outrage when *women* engage in violent acts, as if they were unnatural beings. Outrage and fascination - and also titillation.

The problem is that many generations of feminist activism also operates on a similar premise: women stand for peace, mothers against violence, etc. This may often be a strategic move, but then it is complicit in the same logic: violent women are unnatural creatures of cruelty.

Fusco's work revolves specifically around Abu Ghraib here, and the sexual abuses perpetrated by female interrogators. Dangerous women as a figure in the modern imagination (the femme fatale) are ones with a sexuality that needs to be controlled. The female interrogators at Abu Ghraib were dangerous women within the context of larger structures of power that encouraged them to use their sex to abuse men of a supposedly more sexually repressed culture. Their positions both within the military and within the relationship with the detainees is one defined by "feminist" advances. How to feminists deal with this?

[Xio]

It already has my back up cause it's all oh we daughters of wealth who recognize the imperative of the room of one's own (she is "speaking to" Virginia Woolf) in order to fully realize ourselves blah the fucking blah but I'm sticking with it cause the subject of females in the military is fascinating to me.

Know why? Because, personally, I do not understand why or how it ever came to be that females weren't dominating the worlds of strategy and tactics from the first, they being so fit for that task from birth. Damned childbirth.

(go ahead and guess if I'm kidding)

[Lee Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This compact volume is a fascinating probe into the role of women in the "war on terror" in this age. Fusco always poses interesting questions in her work, but the ones here really made me sit up and take notice. It's interesting to explore the role of feminism in the context of combat strategy...to consider how to advocate for women's rights without turning turning back the clock on advancement.

[Caty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Female sexual violence (against *men*) has always been a real & violating force I've witnessed in my life, so why is it so hard to find a feminist analysis that discusses it? This one does, + brings it back to trenchant & sobering issues having to do with detainee abuse.

[Tattered Cover Book Store]

New York artist and writer Fusco satirizes adn examines women's roles in The War on Terror in thie guise of a letter to Virginia Woolf.

[Mona Kareem]

overwhelming and very necessary. exploring women and violence. breaking down US feminism and its complicit/passive role in American warfare.

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Explore the invasion of space by a female, and all of its social implications.