Gender Ideologies and Military Labor Markets in the U.S.

Book excerpt: Gender Ideologies and Military Labor Markets in the U.S. offers a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between changes in military gender ideologies and structural changes in U.S. military and society. By investigating how social and military change have influenced gender ideologies, the author develops an approach that (re-)connects military gender ideologies to the social conditions of their production and distribution and explains their transformation as effects of changing social and political relations and conflicts. Examining the role of different groups of social actors, media debates on women’s military participation and gender ideologies inherent in depictions of military women, the author seeks to contextualise these ideologies are within structural change in the U.S. military and society, relating them to the gender-specific division of labour on civilian and military labor markets. This work provides a deeper understanding of the nexus between military re-structuring processes, women’s military integration, and changes of gender ideologies in regard to war and the military, and will be of great interest to students and scholars of gender, security studies and American politics.