Introductory description

Since World War II, the military has loomed large in the United States: significant not only for its war-waging functions and budgetary claims but as a parallel welfare state. The site of intense political contestation, the US armed forces have also formed a battleground in battles over sex, sexual violence, and sexuality: the focus of this 15 CAT module. Organised into three parts, this module will explore different facets of of sex-- as a problem and resource-- for the US military over the decades since World War II.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Part I: Sex and the US soldier

1. Why and how gender, sex and sexuality matter in the US military
2. The US military and commercial sex
3. Domestication: a 'family friendly' army?

Part II: Gender in the Armed Services
4) Masculinity and femininity at war in Vietnam
5) Recruitment and training
6) Reading Week
7) Women in combat

Part III: Managing sexuality in the US military
8) The queerness of the military
9) Sexual violence: an invisible war?
10) Transgender service: the final frontier?

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the multiple ways in which sex and sexuality have structured US military service in the years since World War II.
• Communicate ideas and findings, adapting to a range of situations, audiences and degrees of complexity.
• Generate ideas through the analysis of a broad range of primary source material, including sources produced by active duty personnel and veterans.
• Analyse and evaluate the contributions made by existing scholarship.
• Act with limited supervision and direction within defined guidelines, accepting responsibility for achieving deadlines.

Indicative reading list

• Betty Sowers Alt and Bonne Domrose Stone, Campfollowing: A History of the Military Wife (New
• York: Praeger, 1991)
• Donna Alvah, Unofficial Ambassadors: American Military Families Overseas and the Cold War,
• 1946-65 (New York: NYU Press, 2007)
• Beth L. Bailey and David Farber, The First Strange Place: Race and Sex in World War II Hawaii
• (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992)
• Allan Bérubé, Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II (New
• York: Free Press, 1990) [e-book]
• Anu Bhagwati, "The Unheard Victims of The Invisible War: The Victims of Sexual Assault in the US
• Military," Foreign Affairs, March 28, 2013
• Beth Bailey, America's Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
• Press, 2009) [e-book]
• Beth Bailey, "The Politics of Dancing: 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' and the Role of Moral Claims," Journal
• of Policy History 25, 1 (2013): 89-113
• Tarak Barkawi et al, "Rights and Fights: Sexual Orientation and Military Effectiveness,"
• International Security 24, 1 (Summer 1999): 181-201
• Aaron Belkin, Bring Me Men: Military Masculinity and the Benign Façade of American Empire,
• 1898-2001 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012)
• Aaron Belkin and Melissa Sheridan Embser-Herbert, "A Modest Proposal: Privacy as a Flawed
• Rationale for the Exclusion of Gays and Lesbians from the U.S. Military," International Security 27,
• 2 (Fall 2002): 178-97
• Helen Benedict, The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq (Boston: Beacon
• Press, 2009) [e-book]
• Jane Blair, Hesitation Kills: A Female Marine Officer's Combat Experience in Iraq (Lanham, MD:
• Rowman & Littlefield, 2011) [e-book]
• Laura Browder, When Janey Comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans
• (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2010) [e-book]
• Melissa T. Brown, Enlisting Masculinity: The Construction of Gender in US Military Recruiting
• Advertising During the All Volunteer Force (Oxford: OUP, 2012) [e-book]
• Margot Canaday, The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America
• (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009)
• Helen Carreiras and Gerhard Kummel (eds), Women in the Military and in Armed Conflict
• (Springer Science and Business Media, 2008)
• Carol Cohn, "Wars, Wimps, and Women: Talking Gender and Thinking War," in Gendering War
• Talk, eds. Miriam Cooke and Angela Woollacott, Gendering War Talk (Princeton: Princeton
• University Press, 1993)
• Carol Cohn (ed.) Women and Wars: Contested Histories, Uncertain Futures (Cambridge, UK: Polity,
• Robert Draper, "The Military's Rough Justice on Sexual Assault" New York Times Magazine (Nov.
• 26, 2014)
• Paige Whaley Eager, Waging Gendered Wars: US Military Women in Afghanistan and Iraq
• (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014)
• Jean Bethke Elshtain, "'Shooting' at the Wrong Target: A Response to Van Creveld," Millennium
• 29, 2 (2000): 443-48
• Cynthia Enloe, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives (Berkeley:
• University of California Press, 2000)
• Joshua Goldstein, War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa
• (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)
• Martha Gravois, "Military Families in Germany, 1946-1986: Why They Came and Why They Stay,"
• Parameters 16, 4 (Winter 1986): 57-9
• M.S. Herbert, Camouflage Isn't Only for Combat: Gender, Sexuality, and Women in the Military
• (New York: NYU
• Megan MacKenzie, Beyond the Band of Brothers: The US Military and the Myth that Women Can't
• Fight (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)
• Megan MacKenzie, "Let Women Fight: Ending the US Military's Female Combat Ban," Foreign
• Affairs, Jan. 23, 2013
• Kenneth MacLeish, Making War at Fort Hood: Life and Uncertainty in a Military Community
• (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015)
• Elizabeth Mesok, "Affective Technologies of War: US Female Counterinsurgents and the
• Performances of Gendered Labor," Radical History Review 123 (Oct. 2015): 60-87
• Katherine H.S. Moon, Sex with Allies: Military Prostitution in US-Korea Relations (New York:
• Columbia University Press, 1997)
• Elizabeth M. Norman, Women at War: The Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam
• (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990) [e-book]
• Meghan O'Malley, "All is Not Fair in Love and War: An Exploration of the Military Masculinity
• Myth," DePaul Journal of Women, Gender and the Law 5, 1 (Fall 2015): 1-40
• Jennifer Mittelstadt, The Rise of the Military Welfare State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
• Press, 2015)
• Mary Louise Roberts, What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France, 1944-
• 1946 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013)
• Bernard Rosler, I Want You! The Evolution of the All-Volunteer Force (RAND, 2006) [e-book]
• Laura Sjoberg, Gender, War, and Conflict (Cambridge: Polity, 2014)
• Laura Sjoberg and Sandra Via (eds), Gender, War and Militarism (Praeger Security International,
• 1. [e-book]
• Heather Marie Stur, Beyond Combat: Women and Gender in the Vietnam War Era (Cambridge:
• Cambridge University Press, 2011)
• Charissa Threat, Nursing Civil Rights: Gender and Race in the Army Nurse Corps (Champaign:
• University Press, 2015) [e-book]
• US Commission on Civil Rights, Sexual Assault in the Military. Statutory Enforcement Report.
• Washington, DC, September 2013
• Martin van Creveld, "The Great Illusion: Women in the Military," Millennium 29, 2 (2000): 429-42
• Kara Dixon Vuic, Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War (Baltimore:
• Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010)
• Julia Welland, "Gender and 'Population-Centric' Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan," in Simona
• Sharoni et al, Handbook on Gender and War (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2016) [e-book]
• Laurie Lee Weinstein and Christie C. White, Wives and Warriors: Women and the Military in the
• United States and Canada (Greenwood Publishing, 1997)
• James E. Wise and Scott Brown, Women at War: Iraq, Afghanistan and Other Conflicts (Annapolis,
• MD: Naval Institution Press, 2011) [e-book]
• John Willoughby, Remaking the Conquering Heroes: The Postwar American Occupation of
• Germany (New York: St Martin's, 2001) [e-book]
• Susan Zeiger, Entangling Alliances: Foreign War Brides and American Soldiers in the Twentieth
• Century (New York: NYU Press) [e-book]

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.