Lebanon’s militarized masculinity

This piece was originally published as part of Al-Jumhuriya’s “Gender, Sexuality, and Power” on 20 December 2018. A translation into Arabic was also made by Yasser Alzaiat.

In the summer of 2017, as (unfounded) rumors began to spread on social media of Syrians “going to protest against our honorable army,” a wave of hyper-masculine ultra-nationalism mixed with the usual xenophobia saw random Syrian men…