Skydd eller maktutövning? En feministisk kritisk diskursanalys av USA:s militära ingripande mot Houthi-rebellerna 2024

Sammanfattning

This thesis explores how the United States legitimized the military operation, Operation Prosperity Guardian, during the spring of 2024, in response to the Houthi attacks in the Red sea. Drawing on feminist critical discourse analysis, the study analyzes eleven official statements issued by U.S. authorities, to explore how assumptions about protectors, protected objects and predators are discursively constructed. The analysis is theoretically informed by the concept of Masculinist Protection, which highlights how gendered logics shapes security practices and legitimize the use of military violence. The results demonstrates that Houthi rebels, along with Iran, are discursively constructed as an irrational and aggressive threat that can be seen as a hyper masculine agent. Within this discursive framework, civilians, global trade and freedom of navigation are framed as vulnerable and in need of protection, which can be understood as a feminized construction of these entities. In contrast to Houthi and Iran, the U.S. positions itself as rational, responsible and necessary protector, which can be understood as a masculine protector. Through this role as a protector, the U.S. can legitimize military violence as a defensive response rather than an exercise of power. The study thereby highlights how the legitimization of military operations is discursively framed as protection, revealing how security logics are structured through gendered hierarchies.