Women, Warfare and Representation: American Servicewomen in the Twentieth Century

by Emerald M. Archer

Overview

Women, Warfare and Representation considers the various ways the American servicewoman has been represented throughout the 20th century and how those representations impact the roles she is permitted to inhabit. While women have a relatively short history in the American military, the last century shows an evolution of women's direct participation in war despite the need to overcome societal sex-role expectations.

The primary focus is on the American case, but Emerald Archer also introduces a comparative element, showing how women's integration in the military differs in other countries, including Great Britain, Canada and Israel. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the book draws on military history, theory and social psychology to offer a more complete and integrated history of women in the military and their representation in society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474238137
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	07/13/2017
Series:	War, Culture and Society
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Emerald M. Archer is the Director of the Center for the Advancement of Women at Mount Saint Mary's University in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Graphs

1. Introduction
2. History of Women's Participation in the U.S. Armed Forces
3. Comparative Histories: Women's Participation in the Canadian, British, and Israeli Armed Forces
4. Stereotype Threat Theory and Women's Marksmanship Performance: A Social Psychology Experiment
5. In-Depth Interviews and Revealing Patterns of Sex-Role Stereotyping
6. Women's Representation in War Photography and the Perpetuation of a Grand Narrative
7. The RMA Debate: Women's Integration as Military Innovation
8. Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

Archer ... offers a sweeping analysis of how servicewomen have been represented both historically and today. Using an interdisciplinary approach, she draws on a wide array of sources, methods, and theories to explain the progress that servicewomen have made in gaining inclusion, the obstacles they have faced, and current day challenges, such as expanding rights for LGBT communities.
CHOICE

Does adding women to state armed forces changed the armed forces, or women, or both? Emerald Archer's fascinating manuscript explores a century of women's involvement in the US military, with global comparisons. It looks at the limited roles women were initially offered, how gender expectations shaped women's development in the military, and women's progress while facing gender-stereotypical expectations. I highly recommend for anyone looking to understand how armed forces work!
Laura Sjoberg, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Florida, USA

Through rich interviews and rigorous experimentation, Emerald Archer explores some of the unique challenges facing women who serve in the armed forces with clear eyed compassion. Expanding her analysis to countries beyond the United States, Archer examines the ways in which women's participation in war transforms sex role stereotypes in larger society. This important contribution to the literature on women and war helps expand the conversation around the nature of inclusion in representative democracy.
Rose McDermott, David and Marianna Fisher University Professor of International Relations, Brown University, USA

From the Publisher