We need a military history of the culture wars

This is a wonderful phrase Finn Mackay uses in their book Feminine Masculinities and the Gender Wars (pg 3). It’s used in a slightly off-hand way but I think has a clear analytical meaning in terms of the historical unfolding of the disputes which get subsumed under the category of ‘culture wars’. Interestingly MacKay is sceptical of this category and sees the military history as something of a corrective to it, with the potential to identify the myths which have been thrown ‘from the trenches’ and overcoming the lack of context which ensues from them.