Wives and Warriors

This book is about the women who serve the military as wives and those who serve as soldiers, sailors, and flyers. Comparing wives and warriors in the U.S. and Canada, it examines how the military in both countries constructs gender to exclude women from being respected as equals to men. Written by a wide range of scholars and military personnel, the book covers such contemporary issues as the opening of military academies to women, the opening of combat posts to women, the experience of being a wife in the two-person career of an officer-husband, sexual harassment, turnover of women in the armed services, and U.S. and Canadian policies allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the military. Part of an emerging feminist scholarship in military studies, this work also explores how gender has been constructed to maintain the status quo and women's narrowly defined roles as the dependent helpmates of men.

LAURIE WEINSTEIN is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Western Connecticut State University. She is codirector of Western's Women's Studies Program. As a former Navy wife, Dr. Weinstein has published numerous articles on military wives, but she is best known for her works on Native Americans, including The Wampanoag (1989) and Enduring Traditions: The Native Peoples of New England (Bergin & Garvey, 1994).

CHRISTIE WHITE is pursuing a Ph.D. at Northeastern University. Her interests include gender and minority studies, labor issues, and deviance and social control.