Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Throughout the period of the all-volunteer force, the US military has been ambivalent about the participation of women in the armed forces and the roles they should play. Militaries have a long-standing close association with masculinity and the making of men, but America's volunteer military needs women to fill its "manpower" needs. The US military has had to find ways to attract women recruits without alienating young men, who are still the main focus of recruiting efforts.This paper will examine the ways that the various branches of the US military have tried to appeal to women and motivate them to enlist, and the ideas about soldiering and gender that they reflect and produce in the process. Examining recruitment materials provides insight into the changing perception of women's roles in the various branches. Each service has its own history and institutional culture, and each one struggles with the relationship between gender and military service in its own way. While there is a large body of literature on women in the military (as well as women and the military), very little examines recruitment, which is one of the military's most public faces.Recruitment involves overt image-making and an attempt to sell particular pictures of military service, making it an especially fruitful site to study the construction of gender by the military.