Citizenship is not one of the issues political scientists hotly contest. Yet perhaps we have failed to recognize the profoundly controversial issues involved in citizenship. One of the most difficult for the modern citizen is, of course, whether the classical ideal of “high citizenship” remains a possibility. But the ideal of ruling and being ruled will not be my concern here. Rather, my concern will focus on the fact that citizenship has historically been a very exclusive social category. Many groups have struggled to attain the status of citizen. In the United States to be poor, black, or female, has for the most part meant automatic disenfranchisement. Citizenship, then, concerns the question of one's position in the community of which one is a part. It is, of course, not the only determinant by far and is itself dependent on other factors. Yet given these considerations, teaching about citizenship must raise the ethical issues which, if made as prominent as they deserve to be, would indeed make citizenship the subject of controversy.
In this short essay, I can address only one aspect of these issues—that which centers on the relation of gender to citizenship. Although today many of us attempt to speak about citizenship in gender-neutral language, the connections of citizenship with manliness, established so long ago, still influence both thinking about citizenship and the conduct of rulers and ruled. Thus, the familiar gender gap on issues of peace and war should be seen as a symptom of deeper issues about politics, problems with a history traceable over several thousand years of Western history, problems defined by the overlay of citizenship, manliness, and military capacity.