Female Empowerment and the Chain of Command: Women in the U.S. Military

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffany Sanford-Jenson ◽  
Marla H. Kohlman
Keyword(s):  
Public And Private ◽  
Women In The Military ◽  
Reproductive Health Care ◽  
Career Opportunities ◽  
Full Participation ◽  
Chain Of Command ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Armed Services ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. military has garnered considerable scrutiny over how successfully it has incorporated women into full participation. With the formal infusion of women into the Armed Services in the last half of the twentieth century, scholars have begun to examine women’s military experiences as they have entered into new occupational roles, putting women ever closer to controversial combat-related work. Accompanying these increased career opportunities are age-old risks reported in the civilian workplace, including the increased likelihood of harassment, rape, discrimination, subjugation, and other types of gender-based inequality. This chapter provides a detailed synthesis of myriad social movement experiences for women in the military as they have sought to define new roles and participate more fully in the all-volunteer forces. Specifically, the chapter examines sexist practice, combat inclusion, sexual victimization, expansion of reproductive health care, veteran’s benefits, and legal avenues for women’s social movements both in public and private spheres.

The Combat Exclusion and the Role of Women in the Military

Hypatia ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Wagner Decew
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Women In The Military ◽  
History Of ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

I first discuss reasons for feminists to attend to the role of women in the military, despite past emphasis on antimilitarism. I then focus on the exclusion of women from combat duty, reviewing its sanction by the U.S. Supreme Court and the history of its adoption. I present arguments favoring the exclusion, defending strong replies to each, and demonstrate that reasoning from related cases and feminist analyses of equality explain why exclusion remains entrenched.

The U.S. Military Response to Cyber W

2011 ◽  
pp. 439-445
Author(s):  
Richard J. Kilroy Jr.
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Leadership ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Cyber Warfare ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
United States Military ◽  
Armed Services ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

The United States military has taken a number of steps to confront the threat of cyber warfare. These include organizational, operational, and personnel changes by all the armed services, as well as the joint commands, which conduct operational warfare. Many of these changes began before the terrorist attacks of 9/11 as military planners recognized the vulnerabilities the nation faced to asymmetrical warfare conducted in cyberspace, as well as the military’s dependency on key critical infrastructures within the United States that were vulnerable to cyber warfare. Although many changes have taken place, to include training new classes of military officers and enlisted specialists in career fields and military doctrine related to cyber warfare (both offensive and defensive), the military continues to remain vulnerable to an adversary’s ability to control the informational battlefield. Thus, a key strategic goal of the U.S. military leadership is to achieve information superiority over its current and potential adversaries.

scholarly journals The Impact of Mammography Screening Guideline Changes Among Women Serving in the U.S. Military

2020 ◽  
Vol 185 (11-12) ◽  
pp. e2088-e2096
Author(s):  
Julie A Bytnar ◽  
Celia Byrne ◽  
Cara Olsen ◽  
Catherine T Witkop ◽  
Mary Beth Martin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Mammography Screening ◽  
Women In The Military ◽  
Screening Guidelines ◽  
Screening Guideline ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Universal Health ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Introduction The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) modified their screening guidelines for breast cancer in November 2009. Previous studies evaluated the impact of these guideline changes among privately and Medicare insured populations. Women in the military form a unique population exposed to many social, environmental, and occupational hazards that may increase breast cancer incidence. By evaluating mammography screening rates among women in the military before and after the USPSTF guideline changes, this study evaluated the impact of the USPSTF breast cancer guideline change on screening mammography use within the military population and determined whether current guidelines were followed for this high-risk population with universal health care access. Materials and methods This study evaluated the impact of the 2009 guideline changes among the population of universally insured military servicewomen, comparing the proportion of active duty women aged 40 to 64 receiving mammograms from fiscal years 2006 to 2015 using an interrupted time series analysis. Stratified analyses evaluated differences by age (aged 40–49, 50–64), race, military branch, and rank. This research is considered exempt by the Uniformed Services University Institutional Review Board. Results The proportion of insured military servicewomen receiving mammograms increased from October 2005 through September 2009. A significant decrease occurred in the first quarter of 2010 following the publication of the screening guideline update. From this new baseline, the proportion of women screened increased again through September 2015. Comparative analyses showed more pronounced effects both immediately and over time among the women aged 50 to 64 compared to those aged 40 to 49 years and among older enlisted women compared with their officer counterparts. The patterns were near identical in all subgroups; however, no changes in rate were evident among Air Force and black servicewomen aged 50 to 64 and Army and Navy/Marine Corps servicewomen aged 40 to 49 years. No racial disparities in screening or impact were noted. Conclusions The USPSTF guidelines had differential impacts among some subpopulations. While older women, aged 50 to 64 years, had a greater temporary reduction immediately after the guideline change, younger women aged 40 to 49 years had a longer-term reduction in screening following the guideline changes. No racial disparities in the proportion screened or in the impact of the guideline change were noted in this population with universal health coverage. The lack of Department of Defense standard breast cancer screening guidelines was evident from the different patterns of mammography utilization observed among military branches. To completely understand the impact of the updated screening guidelines, future studies must incorporate research focusing on changes in breast cancer morbidity and mortality as well as updated cost-benefit analyses.

The Reception of American Literature in Japan during the Occupation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiromi Ochi
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Rockefeller Foundation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Occupation ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Armed Services ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

The reception of American literature in Japan was radically altered after the Second World War. Before the war, only a handful of works on American literature were published, and the status of American literature was secondary to that of British literature. Unlike in Germany, whose occupation at the end of the war was divided among the Allies, the military occupation of Japan was conducted unilaterally by the United States. Under the U.S. occupation, American literature was introduced as part of a cultural policy aimed at the reorientation and re-education of Japanese society under the umbrella concept of demilitarization and democratization of postwar Japan. Such cultural politics was the product of a 1930s U.S. State Department program carried out at first in South American countries and then through the Office of War Information in war-torn European countries. American literature was introduced through the program of the Culture, Information and Education (CIE) section of General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ/SCAP). In accordance with the transformation of the U.S. literary canon as the cultural Cold War regime developed, the book selections of the CIE changed from reflecting the multicultural, New Deal ideal (including books under the Federal Writers Project) to incorporating the modernist canon. American books were distributed to CIE libraries established in major cities in Japan, and in 1948, the CIE launched a new program to promote translations into Japanese. Beside the official distribution, there was also a trade in American books—including Armed Services Editions, which were not meant for sale—on the Japanese used book market. What was really pivotal for instituting American literary studies and its modernist canon were the summer seminars sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and held at the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University. The Rockefeller report submitted to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in 1951 was also instrumental in providing a blueprint for the continued cultural program after the peace treaty of 1951 and the end of military occupation the following year. The introduction of American literature and its newly reformed canon tuned for modernism occurred within the continuum of the political, the military, and the economic. As such, the cultural program was enmeshed with refashioning Japanese subjectivity, and in this sense, American literature and American studies were part of a general cultural politics that was intertwined with the ways of government.

Family planning in the U.S. military: The gendered experiences of servicewomen

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie K. Erwin
Keyword(s):  
Family Planning ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Military Family ◽  
Military Women ◽  
Women In The Military ◽  
Professional Careers ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
Family And Work ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

LAY SUMMARY Balancing family and work is always challenging for working women; however, military service presents especially nuanced and unique challenges to women serving in the U.S. military. Family planning, and in particular marriage and children, have distinct impacts on servicewomen’s professional careers. Their chosen professions often intersect and detract from their family planning choices. Within a larger study of gendered experiences, women from all four branches of the U.S. military, representing a variety of familial statuses and occupations, noted the complex and challenging intersections of family and work they encountered over the course of their military careers. As in other professions, military women bear disproportionate familial burdens compared with their male counterparts, and challenges pertaining to marriage and children regularly affect their professional careers. However, the military presents heightened professional demands on family planning, including marital status, marital partners’ professions, pregnancy, maternity, and parenthood. These additional challenges women in the military face regarding family planning often run counter to organizational efforts to encourage women’s participation, promotion, and retention in the military.

Tactical Tactility: Warfare, Gender, and Cultural Intelligence

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isra Ali
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Intelligence ◽  
Gender Segregation ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Women In The Military ◽  
Engagement Strategies ◽  
War Zone ◽  
The Us ◽  
Gendered Roles ◽  
The Military

The participation of women in the landscape of warfare is increasingly visible; nowhere is this more evident than in the US military’s global endeavors.  The US military’s reliance on cultural intelligence in its conceptualization of engagement strategies has resulted in the articulation of specific gendered roles in warfare. Women are thought to be particularly well suited to non-violent tactile engagements with civilians in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan because of gender segregation in public and private spaces.  Women in the military have consequently been able to argue for recognition of their combat service by framing this work in the war zone as work only women can do.  Women reporters have been able to develop profiles as media producers, commentators, and experts on foreign policy, women, and the military by producing intimate stories about the lives of civilians only they can access.  The work soldiers and reporters do is located in the warzone, but in the realms of the domestic and social, in the periods between bursts of violent engagement.  These women are deployed as mediators between civilian populations in Afghanistan and Iraq and occupying forces for different but related purposes.  Soldiers do the auxiliary work of combat in these encounters, reporters produce knowledge that undergirds the military project.  Their work in combat zones emphasizes the interpersonal and relational as forms of tactile engagement.  In these roles, they are also often mediating between the “temporary” infrastructure of the war zone and occupation, and the “permanent” infrastructure of nation state, local government, and community.  The work women do as soldiers and reporters operates effectively with the narrative of militarism as a means for liberating women, reinforcing the perception of the military as an institution that is increasingly progressive in its attitudes towards membership, and in its military strategies.  When US military strategy focuses on cultural practice in Arab and Muslim societies, commanders operationalize women soldiers in the tactics of militarism, the liberation of Muslim women becomes central in news and governmental discourses alike, and the notion of “feminism” is drawn into the project of US militarism in Afghanistan and Iraq in complex ways that elucidate how gender, equality, and difference, can be deployed in service of warfare.

The Right to Life

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Brysk
Keyword(s):  
The Philippines ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Honor Killings ◽  
The Public ◽  
Gender Regimes ◽  
Sex Selective Abortion ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
The Right

Chapter 6 concerns denial of women’s right to life . The new frame of “femicide” has dramatically increased attention to gender-based killing in the public and private sphere, and encompasses a spectrum of threats and assaults that culminate in murder. The chapter follows the threats to women’s security through the life cycle, beginning with cases of “gendercide” (sex-selective abortion and infanticide) in India, then moving to honor killings in Turkey and Pakistan. We examine public femicide in Mexico and Central America—with comparison to the disappearance of indigenous women in Canada, as “second-class citizens” in a developed democracy. The chapter continues mapping the panorama of private sphere domestic violence in the semi-liberal gender regimes of China, Russia, Brazil, and the Philippines, along with a range of responses in law, public policy, advocacy, and protest.

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