Ground Zero: The Gender Wars in the MilitaryGround Zero tells the stories of women and men in the military as it relates and examines the issues raised in the polarized debate over women in combat: The biological aspects of women's lives, including menstruation, pregnancy and motherhood, are cast as threats to national security by servicewomen's opponents, while these service-women's advocates use those same issues to press for expanded child care, parental leave and gynecological services. The exposure of harassment at the military academies and in the services has signaled a call by their opponents for women to retreat, but it has been taken by their advocates as a mandate to challenge the male culture. The cultural issue revolves around not whether women can perform combat roles, but whether they should. Linda Bird Francke writes about women who have served and died in combat zones and about women who have been driven out of the services and the elite military academies by harassment. She calls attention to women and men who persevere in challenging the resistance to equality in the services. She describes a determined hard core of right-wing conservatives and disgruntled military men who continue to use every kind of issue and allegation - quotas, reverse discrimination, lowered standards - to reverse women's progress in the military. In the end, two simple facts remain. The Armed Services need women. And, in the male culture of the military, the battle of the sexes will never be over. |
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academy's Air Force Academy aircraft American Armed Services Army women Army's assault assigned aviation Becraft Captain Center civilian combat exclusion laws command committee Congress congressional Cornum DACOWITS Defense Department DEOMI deployed deployment Elaine Donnelly enlisted women female cadets female officers female pilots flight G-forces gender going graduate Gulf Gulf war guys hearing Ibid Iraqi issue Jeanne Holm kennel lesbian Lieutenant Colonel male cadets Marine Corps members of DACOWITS ment midshipmen military women mission Naval Academy Navy women Navy's nondeployability nurses Operation Just Cause Panama Pentagon percent personnel Phyllis Schlafly plebes pregnancy pregnant women presidential commission prisoners problem rape Rathbun-Nealy recruits repeal roles Rossi says Schroeder Senate senior sergeant servicewomen sexual harassment ships single parents soldiers story Tailhook testimony tion told troops U.S. Army units Vietnam Washington West Point white male woman women in combat young