Gender Camouflage: Women and the U.S. Military

Bringing together a diverse array of authors, this work explores the controversy surrounding women’s military service in the USA, discusses the invisibility of civilian women who support the institution, and seeks to expose military efforts to camouflage that support. The contributors first consider nurses, servicewomen, military-academy students, female veterans, and lesbians. The focus then moves to military wives, women employed by the Department of Defense, and female civilian military instructors. There is also an examination of the experiences of women outside the military, such as comfort women near US bases, women engaged in peace work, and women workers affected by military spending in the federal budget. Analytic chapters are juxtaposed with first-person narratives by women who include a member of the first gender-integrated class at West Point, the first female civilian instructors at the US Naval Academy, and an African American Air Force Nurse Corps veteran.