The Army, which needs to attract the greatest number of recruits each year, has pictured women
the most frequently, and has presented them in ways that make them seem like a regular part of
the institution. The Army has been willing to occasionally let itself be represented by a female
face, placing ads featuring women in publications aimed at men or a mixed audience. At times
the Army has sought to reaffirm the femininity of female soldiers, but for the most part it has
offered women the same things it offers men. It has sent the message that “a woman in the Army
is still a woman,” but recruiting materials have also communicated the idea that a woman in the
Army is a soldier like any other.
The Navy, on the other hand, occasionally uses images of women in its advertising, but without
necessarily presenting them as a regular part of naval life. The ads make token references to
women as sailors, but basically present the Navy as a male world and use images of women as a
way to attract men; women may perform a decorative function as civilians, or if they are pictured
in uniform, they generally aren’t performing a naval task. While almost all Navy ships are
theoretically open to women, in practice, space for women is limited, and their marginal status
on board ships—the locus of naval power and status—is reflected in their place within the
Navy’s self-representations. The Air Force has the largest percentage of women and the most
jobs open to women, but women are a minor presence in Air Force recruiting materials. This
may be an artifact of the Air Force’s overall recruiting situation. The Air Force has generally
attracted a large number of high-quality recruits; much of the recruiting the Air Force has done
has been specifically aimed at people with technical and mechanical skills—whom the Air Force
presumes are more likely to be young men—rather than at the general population of high school
graduates. The Marines, the most combat-intensive of the services and the one with the fewest
women, makes only the most token of references to the existence of women Marines. The print
ad sample contained only a single textual reference to women and a single image of a female
Marine. The public face of the Marine Corps is fully male and fully masculinized.
This study shows that if there are opportunities for women in the armed forces, some
women will enlist even if the armed forces haven’t made any effort to reach out to them.
Women who want all those benefits that are sold to men, from the tangibles like job training,
medical coverage, vacation time, and travel, to the intangibles like challenge and pride, will
respond to pitches aimed at men, or even, perhaps, to the occasional picture of a woman or
textual reference to women which acknowledges that military women exist. The number of
women who respond to recruiting materials that code military service as masculine will be small,
38
Convention