Citizenship Rites

Feminist Soldiers and Feminist Antimilitarists

Ilene Feinman

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2000
• ISBN:
  9780814729007
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

In the United States, the question of women in the armed services has been continuously and hotly debated. Among feminists, two fundamentally differing views of women in the military have developed. Feminist antimilitarists tell us that militarism and patriarchy have together pressed women into second class citizenship. Meanwhile, feminist soldiers and their advocates regard martial service as women's right and responsibility and the ticket to first class citizenship.

Citizenship Rites investigates what is at stake for women in these debates. Exploring the perspectives of both feminist antimilitarists and feminist soldiers, Ilene Feinman situates the current combat controversy within the context of the sea change in United States politics since the 1970s-from ERA debates over drafting women to recent representations of military women such as the film GI Jane. Drawing on congressional testimony, court cases, feminist and antiracist political discourse, and antimilitarist activism, Feinman addresses our pressing need for an analysis of women's increasing inclusion in the armed forces while providing a provocative investigation of what this changing role means for women and society alike.

INDEX

Abzug, Bella, and Women Strike for Peace, 24, 217n. 30

Addis, Elisabetta, 52–53

and militarized femininity, 201

African American men, as Buffalo Soldiers, 93

African American women soldiers, 103

and job market, 103

and social welfare, 182

Aglietta, Michel, 59

AID policies, 59

Air Force: Medical Specialists Corps, 97

Nurse Corps, 97

ROTC, opened to women, 99

women pilots and combat, 171–73

All Volunteer Forces, 6, 41, 132

and martial masculinity, 102

and quota removal, 112

and women, 141

American Revolution, 88

Anarchism, 82

Antifeminist militarists, 4

and right-wing women, 168

Antimilitarism. See Feminist antimilitarism

Antinuclear actions: activists, 64

and civil disobedience, 15

Committee for Nonviolent Action, 33

Mothers and Others Day action, 2, 13–14

and nonviolence preparations, 14

Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, 81

and web of resistance at WPA, 81

Antinuclear movement, 164

and critique of separate spheres, 76

and phallic symbols, 164

Antiracist socialist feminism, 47

Antiwar: demonstrations, 17

movement, 81

placards in Persian Gulf War, 214n. 2. See also Feminist antimilitarism; Rituals

Anzaldúa, Gloria, 20

and the mestiza, or border consciousness, 20

Armed forces:

changing roles of, under United Nations, 169

computerized, 200

downsizing, 105

gender-integrated training, 196

and lesbians, 143

Army: Army Navy Nursing Act, 96

Medical Specialists Corps, 97

Army Nurse Corps, 97

downsizing and low-tech workers, especially women of color, 157

Aspin, Secretary of Defense Les: memorandum in response to Presidential Commission report, 194

rescinds the Risk Rule, 194

Barkalow, Carol, 32, 124

Base wives, 95

Becraft, Carolyn, founder of Women in the Military Project, 35

Benería, Lourdes, 24, 26

Bennecke, Michelle, and Kirsten Dodge, 165

Bhavnani, Kum Kum, and Margaret Coulson, 47

Binken and Bach: Brookings Institute study, 128, 160

and need for women recruits, 141

argument for women in the military, 160

Borg in Star Trek, 203

Boxer, Sen. Barbara (D-CA), 32

Brookings Institute study. See Binken and Bach

Brown, Wendy, 44, 45–49, 54

Brownmiller, Susan, 24

Buffalo S...