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Women, the State, and War uses a comparative case study approach to explore the theoretical foundations for the ways that citizenship, nationalism, and marriage are gendered. ... Read more

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The Yugoslav crisis - armed conflict, ethnic cleansing and the reverberating ideas and mindsets - has been going on for more than ten years. This text, written by authors who have lived through these social conflicts, explores the roots of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. It deals with issues which include the institutional frameworks of ethnicity and nationalism; the input of the church, science, literature and sports; specific catalysts of the conflict; and the role of the political actors, students, the ruling party and the media. It examines why and how the violent option of settling disputes and conflicts on the territory of Yugoslavia is being accepted. ... Read more

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The first study to explore the origins of welfare in the context of local politics, this book examines the first public welfare policy created specifically for mother-only families.Chicago initiated the largest mothers' pension program in the United States in 1911. Evolving alongside movements for industrial justice and women's suffrage, the mothers' pension movement hoped to provide "justice for mothers" and protection from life's insecurities. However, local politics and public finance derailed the policy, and most women were required to earn. Widows were more likely to receive pensions than deserted women and unwed mothers. And African-American mothers were routinely excluded because they were proven breadwinners yet did not compete with white men for jobs. Ultimately, the once-uniform commitment to protect motherhood faltered on the criteria of individual support, and wage-earning became a major component of the policy.

This revealing study shows how assumptions about women's roles have historically shaped public policy and sheds new light on the ongoing controversy of welfare reform. ... Read more

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The Kinder, Gentler Military is a devastating critique of how and why the military-the most tradition-bound, masculine institution in the United States--spent the 1990s in a tortured attempt to reform its time--proven warrior culture into a new, politically correct value system, which is decimating morale in our armed forces.Amazon.com Review
When the Marines dropped their famous slogan, "We're looking for a few good men," and replaced it with "The few, the proud, the Marines," they weren't just eliminating a worn-out ad campaign--they were pursuing a controversial social agenda. "The nineties were a decade in which the brass handed over their soldiers to social planners in love with an unworkable (and in many senses undesirable) vision of a politically correct utopia, one in which men and women toil side by side, equally good at the same tasks, interchangeable, and, of course, utterly undistracted by sexual interest," writes journalist Stephanie Gutmann. The Kinder, Gentler Military--an expanded version of a cover story Gutmann wrote for The New Republic--is a devastating critique of the military's sex-integration efforts. She reports of women "allowed to come into basic training at dramatically lower fitness levels and then to climb lower walls, throw shorter distances, and carry lighter packs when they got there." This has led to problems in the field: during the Gulf War, says Gutmann, "men in many units took over tearing down tents or loading boxes because most of the women simply couldn't or wouldn't do these chores as fast." Liberals will accuse Gutmann of hostility to feminism, but her strong blend of reporting and analysis overcomes that charge by describing the frustrations of women who want to contribute to the military's old-fashioned warrior culture, not its newfangled Peace Corps mentality. The Pentagon doesn't want you to read The Kinder, Gentler Military; that's all the more reason why you should. --John J. Miller ... Read more

Customer Reviews (53)

Remains Great
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RAY879SSE02GB This is still a sterling book as bureaucracy and PC remain a major obstacle for those men wishing to remain in the military.

I think we can all agree
I think we can all agree that this question has been satisfactorily answered by our military for the past seven years. Yes, America's Gender-Neutral Fighting Force can still win wars.

FOUR STARS
THE KINDER GENTLER MILITARY is a collection of anecdotes of how the Department of Defense has feminized the armed forces. The anecdotes are current to 2000.

The book is well written and entertaining. I agree with most of what the author concludes. But I'd prefer some tough confrontations with politicians in addition to interviews with the grunts.

from a soldier
As a currently deployed soldier in the US Army, I can vouch for the assessments of the author in as much as the current command climate is one that turns a blind eye to how poorly "political correctness" and the warrior culture interact.Not only does she bring to light the failure of various social experiments in our modern military, but she offers solid advice on how to correct the problems.Bottom line: the armed forces are being told to accomodate new personnel and ideals that are inherently incompatible with an effective fighting force.Future generations will have little sympathy if our defeated forces are "equal", but will merely regard us as a silly, societal experiment that failed.More people need to write/read books like this.

Finally, the truth emerges
I was so enthralled by this book that I read it in one day. Stephanie Gutmann is right on target. Except for the Marines, the military has evolved into some type of sociology lab experiment that is a cross between Gidget and Camp Grenada. I was a U.S. Army officer and spent most of my active duty days in armored cav units. I was also lucky enough to ETS from the lean green machine in 1993, before the ARMY OF NONE was created.

Gutmann's descriptions of army basic training are disturbing to say the least. I attended basic at Fort Knox in 1984. I remember being bashed in the head several times on the rifle range, kicked in the butt several times on the grenade assault course, forced to run around the barracks with a M-60 over my head for eons. I also had a tray of juice glasses dumped over my head in the mess hall because I was out of uniform. I ripped my lip open crawling under barbed wire(still have a scar) and was subject to numerous blistering burns on my right arm from hot brass being ejected on it. That's what happens when you're a lefty. Nope, never went to the medics. They would've just laughed. I also remember the drill sergeant laughing as every other piece of hot brass was ejected on to my forearm. Later on, he congratulated me for "taking" the burns and presented me with some extra ammo to fire up on automatic. There weren't any ability groups either. You ran in formation and God help the poor slob that fell out of a run. These were normal experiences that most vets over 35 have. If you couldn't handle being abused a little, how could you handle combat?

We've already seen the poor results of the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan. The 10th used to be one of the crack units in the army. Apparently, they got caught in the PC crossfire as well. Let's not forget the story of Jessica Lynch's 507th Maintenance Company which was ambushed and couldn't fight back against some Third World gang-bangers.

At the end of the day, someone has to have the guts to ask, "where are we going with all of this sensitivity garbage?" And, what kind of men do we have in this country that they would allow women to go to war? That, is the most distressing point of all.

Five stars Stephanie. You're one heck of a writer. I'm going to make you an honorary 7th Cav Trooper! Garryowen! ... Read more

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In the last half century, the nature of war has changed dramatically. Wars in the post-Cold War period have occurred mainly within national borders rather than between sovereign states. In these conflicts, civilians are increasingly the deliberate targets of war rather than accidental victims. Women and children in particular have become the intentional targets of murder, rape, and kidnapping. The book focuses on the impact of war on women and girls, and the potential for women as peacemakers. The text addresses major policy issues facing organizations involved in humanitarian assistance, and highlights actions to address and resolve armed violence and conflict.

Wounds of War presents ten country profiles, along with information on eleven key topics related to the impacts of war, including the economies of war, small arms and light weapons, landmines, violence against women and girls, and missing persons.

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Feminist Time Against Nation Time offers a series of essays that explore the complex and oftentimes contradictory relationship between feminism and nationalism through a problematization of contemporality. The collection pursues the following questions: how do the specific temporalities of nationalism and war limit and delimit public spaces in which dissent might happen; and how might we account for the often contradictory and ambiguous relationship of _feminism_ and _nationalism_ through an exploration of the problem of time? ... Read more

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Women and Mens Wars is an original collection of articles, which examine womens attitudes about war. A broad spectrum of views is expressed ranging from the compatibility of the struggle for national liberation for women, to the destructive nature of male institutions, behavior, and ways of thinking. Contents include: Women in the National Struggle in Zimbabwe, an Interview of Naomi Nhiwatiwa by C B Thompson - Feminism and the National Liberation struggle in the Philippines by D Aguilar-San Juan - Reflections on Woolfs Three Guineas by M Yudkin - Tales of War and Tear of Women by N Huston - The Barracks Community in Western Political Thought: Prolegomena to a Feminist Critique of War and Politics by N Harstock - Feminism, Pacifism, Nationalism, and the United Nations Decade for Women by C M Stephenson - Feminism, Pacifism, Internationalism, and the 1915 International Congress of Women by L B Costin - Report on UNESCOs Report: The Role of Women in Peace Movements by S McLean - Women in NATO Militaries: A Conference Report by C M Enloe - Courses on Women in the Military by J H Stiehm - On Beautiful Souls, Just Warriors and Feminist Consciousness by J B Elshtain - Lullabye by J Mirikitani - The Japanese-American Woman, the Second World War, and the Relocation Camp Experience by E Blicksilver - A Materialistic View of Mens and Womens Attitudes Toward War by B As - What Parachute Soldiers Dont See by I Atsumi - The Protected, the Protector, the Defender by J H Stiehm ... Read more

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Cold War Women examines how the internationalist ambitions of American women’s organizations in the years 1945 to 1960 gave way to other concerns. In the emerging Cold War, American women abandoned their relationship with their foreign sisters in favor of solidarity with their national brothers. Far from being advocates of internationalism, American women had become agents for Americanism. Confronting a propaganda campaign from Soviet-backed women’s organizations, American women tried to export a vision of the American way of life and of women’s proper place within it.
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This volume explores the lives and works of nine Northern women who wrote during the Civil War period, examining the ways in which, through their writing, they engaged in the national debates of the time. Lyde Sizer shows that from the 1850 publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin through Reconstruction, these women, as well as a larger mosaic of lesser-known writers, used their mainstream writings publicly to make sense of war, womanhood, Union, slavery, republicanism, heroism, and death.

Among the authors discussed are Lydia Maria Child, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sara Willis Parton (Fanny Fern), Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, Mary Abigail Dodge (Gail Hamilton), Louisa May Alcott, Rebecca Harding Davis, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Although direct political or partisan power was denied to women, these writers actively participated in discussions of national issues through their sentimental novels, short stories, essays, poetry, and letters to the editor.

Sizer pays close attention to how these mostly middle-class women attempted to create a "rhetoric of unity," giving common purpose to women despite differences in class, race, and politics. This theme of unity was ultimately deployed to establish a white middle-class standard of womanhood, meant to exclude as well as include. ... Read more

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Nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Articles of Faith is a powerful exploration of one of the most divisive issues in our recent political history, and the only book to portray the passion of both sides of the abortion conflict.

Drawing from more than five hundred interviews as well as previously unseen archival material, Cynthia Gorney has written a compelling narrative that explores the years between Roe v. Wade (1973) and William L. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the first case to challenge the Roe decision before an anti-Roe court.

Meet Judith Widdicombe, the registered nurse who runs the abortion underground in 1960s St. Louis and then the first legal clinic after Roe v. Wade. And meet Samuel Lee, a young pacifist and would-be seminarian whose provocative abortion bill becomes the centerpiece of William L. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. The Supreme Court case brings the two advocates head-to-head.Amazon.com Review
If you weren't around in the years before the American SupremeCourt legalized a woman's right to choose abortion--in consultation,always, with her doctor--you may not understand how liberatingthe 1973 ruling was for women who wanted that choice, and howoutrageously vile it seemed to people who believed abortion wasmurder, plain and simple. In the 25 years since, a battle royal hasbeen fought in America, state by state. One side works feverishly totie up abortion by any means possible; the other struggles to undo theknots. The combatants are bitter and entrenched, not above slingingmud and, sadly, much more violent acts. By anchoring Articles ofFaith in Missouri and colorfully crafting it around a handful ofpeople who fought hard for contradictory visions, journalist CynthiaGorney forcefully illustrates the missionary zeal abortioninspires--even if her fluid prose occasionally bogs down in minutiaethat's mainly of interest to court watchers or those who were at thescene. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

History comes to life
This book focuses on legalized abortion strugle mainly in Missouri from the early 50's to the late 90's.
What is remarkable about this book is the liveliness in which the people involved in making history jump at you from the pages. All manner of people and beliefs leap at you from the pages , those you agree with and more importently, those with which you disagree . There are no vilians or bad people but only people striving for their beliefes.
The book does not allow a multitude of facts to drown the people and their feelings yet manages still to present them all.
The limitation to a single state works for the book well as allowing the people to be shown in full focus, yet when this is requiredall american action is porteyed.

This book facinated me, entertaining while educating.

One of the best history books I have read in a long time.

Fabulous must read
This book was wonderful.Though on first glance it seems very long and likely dense and dry, it is anything but.Gorney does a fabulous job of presenting both sides of abortion evenly and without bias.And she ties in the thoughts and feelings of the players with the actual battles of the day so smoothly that the book ends up being an easy and very enjoyable read.It should be mandatory reading for anyone involved in, interested in or having an opinion about abortion.

Balanced view of abortion
Before Roe vs. Wade thousands of women a year were getting illegal, unsanitary and oftentimes dangerous abortions.Articles of Faith does a great job of presenting both sides of the abortion argument.The book focuses on the abortion wars in Missouri.It starts in the 60's with Judith Widdicombe, who is an obstetrics nurse and who had an abortion herself.She is a key figure in the underground abortion world in St. Louis.She recruits doctors and she directs women to doctors.Her opinions on abortion are formed from personal experience as well as occupational experience.She was strong in her opinions that a baby and a fetus were different.She had seen hospital beds full of women dying of infection from getting illegal abortions.This led her to her calling.
While Judy was directing women to safer but still illegal abortions, the laws state by state were slowly starting to break down.This created a movement of concerned citizens who were against abortion.These citizens would give presentations using medical and scientific information to support their position that life begins at creation.As to drive their point home, they would show pictures of aborted fetuses.These pictures featured a trash can full of little fetuses and a bloody mass of appendages.What they didn't realize is that people like Judy Widdicombe looked at the same stuff, in real life-not in photographs.She would bring women with gauze and bandages stuffed up their vaginal cavities and let them miscarry in her home.She would then examine the remains of the miscarrage and make sure there wasn't anything left inside the woman.
After Roe vs. Wade, Judy set up a clinic specifically for performing abortions-the first one of its kind in Missouri.She wanted it accessible for all women, and wanted a warm and medical environment that set women at ease-they knew their situation was understood and they knew they were safe.This is where Samuel Lee is introduced.He arrived in St. Louis in 1978 intent on studying theology at Saint Louis University's seminary.As soon as he arrives he becomes involved with the Franciscans.They hosted a meeting of people planning a protest on the steps of an abortion clinic.This was how Sam became drawn into the abortion argument-he was exhilarated by it.Sam researched both sides of the abortion argument, but the more he read the more he became convinced that abortion was never justified-it was putting an end to human life.He left the seminary and became engulfed in the protests and the research-he would protest and be arrested until there was no longer a need to protest abortion.
The abortion argument came to a head in the 80's when Sam and Lou DeFeo wrote a bill that was passed by the Missouri state Senate and the House.It became a Missouri law in 1986.The bill stated that public funds may not be used for abortions and public employees may assist in abortions.The bill also stated that life begins at conception, unborn children have interests that should be protected and the parents of an unborn child have protected interests in the child.But that's only the beginning.The bill says that unborn children at any stage of development should have the same rights of all of other people.This was the first attempt to reverse the ruling of Roe vs. Wade, and it seemed well on its way.
One month before the law took effect, a lawsuit was filed against the bill by Frank Susman.He approached Judy, who had been fighting for almost 30 years for the woman's right to choose, and she was hesitant to join the lawsuit.She was tired of the fight, but she couldn't turn her back on this lawsuit-this one was too dangerous to reproductive health.The judge in that suit came back in 1987 declaring that every provision in the bill was unconstitutional.In 1989, the law suit went to the U.S. Supreme Court for appeal and the justices left Roe vs. Wade alone.The problem with this ruling is the vagueness of the language in the ruling-saying that parts of Roe needed to be more defined, but that it needs to be argued for years to come.When I read the ruling in this book, I really didn't understand exactly what it meant.It almost seemed like the judges had very definite opinions, but they were all different from each other.
After reading this book, I was more affirmed in my own opinions of abortion.It was really interesting to read the other side of the argument.There's no arguing that at life begins at conception-just like a every cell in our body is life, so is a zygote.However, the foundation of my belief in the pro-choice movement lies in the belief that a woman has the right to decide if a fetus should be born.One of the best bumper stickers I've seen about abortion is "Don't like abortion? Don't have one."A woman deserves the choice, that's it-PERIOD.

An important book-again
Written in 1998, and criticized for stopping its retelling of the abortion story in the U.S. several years before that, Articles of Faith is nevertheless still an important book and may be increasingly so if the abortion debate heats up again now that George W. Bush is President.A completely even handed retelling of the history of the abortion debate in the U.S. from the 1960's through the 1990's told through the lives of dedicated partisans of both sides.Yet the author tells this story with sympathy to both sides.Its hard to read this book, your emotions swing from side to side in the debate as Gorney shifts her focus from chapter to chapter from pro choice to pro life. Each side is presented forcefully, but not stridently.Its an excellent book.

both fair and fun
As an adult convert to Catholicism struggling for now five years with infertility, a non-American and the daughter of a founder of my hometown's Family Planning Association, I ordered this book wondering if it would helpme sort out my mixed feelings about abortion. When it arrived my heartsank: though I had been interested in the topic, it looked long enough toremind me of the first-grader's book report, ``This told me more than Iwanted to know about penguins.'' But it's so well-written, well-peopled andthoughtful it's a joy to read. When Cynthia Gorney describes a pro-choiceactivist she does it so carefully you feel certain she's pro-choice, andcertain you must be. But when she describes a pro-life activist, yourealize she might be pro-life -- and so might you be. If we were all be sogenerous and balanced, so readily able to enter into the subtleties ofother people's positions, abortion might never have become a ``war.'' ... Read more

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After war, social conditions are often regarded as more open for changes and international organiations are therefore encouraged to promote womens equal rights, utiliing gender mainstreaming tools. These, sometimes inadvertently, affected the demobiliation program implemented after the civil war in Sierra Leone. This book examines the conceptualiation of women as combatants and victims. ... Read more

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* Surveys feminist approaches to peacebuilding and conflict resolution
* Covers conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe

Policy makers, practitioners, and academics discuss long-running conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe. They highlight the shared experiences of women, and their potential to contribute both to war and to peace. Chapters survey feminist approaches to peace building and conflict resolution, and present concrete policy measures to achieve these ends. Underlying all the essays in this volume is a sense of the need to understand gendered power relations and the dynamics of social change. ... Read more

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More than 75 women served as war correspondents in the Vietnam War, covering every aspect of the war from human interest to combat. They worked for major news media and won major journalism awards, including a Pulitzer Prize. Several women reporters were wounded in combat, three were taken prisoner, and two were killed. Yet, with few exceptions, they are not mentioned in studies of the media in Vietnam. This book chronicles their contribution from 1961 until 1975, with excerpts from the work of Dickey Chapelle, Beverly Deepe, Frances Fitzgerald, Martha Gellhorn, Georgie Anne Geyer, Marguerite Higgins, Jurate Kazickas, Mary McCarthy, Patches (Helen) Musgrove, Elizabeth Pond, Philippa Schuyler, and Kate Webb. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Women War Correspondents in the Vietnam War
The book was delivered on time, and it's in great condition.Just started reading it but it looks like it was exactly was I was looking for to assist my research. ... Read more

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Women teachers were key players in 20th-century feminism. They fought for women's suffrage before the First World War and continued their vigorous compaigns for equal pay, equal promotion opportunities and abolition of the marriage bar into the less promising political environment of the 1920s and 1930s. This text offers an assessment of why women teachers were so politically active, and makes a contribution to the literature on women's politicization. Drawing on interviews with women teachers as well as the records of teachers' associations and central and local government, it explores the tensions in the relationship between their position at the workplace and their family lives and unravels the connections and dissonances between how they saw themselves as both women and professional teachers. ... Read more

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In fascist Italy between the wars, a woman was generally an exemplary wife and mother or else. The "or else," mostly forgotten or overlooked in accounts of femininity under fascism, is what concerns Robin Pickering-Iazzi. Reading works by women of the period, Pickering-Iazzi shows how they refuted stereotypes that were imposed on them by the fascist regime and continue to be accepted and perpetuated into our day. The writers Pickering-Iazzi considers comprise both the popular and the critically acclaimed. She situates their work - short stories, romance novels, autobiographies, neorealist novels, poetry, and avant-garde writings - not only within the context of fascist discourse but also within that of intellectuals and artists who did not keep to the fascist line. In each case, Pickering-Iazzi examines specific issues of gender and genre - notions of women and the nation, rural life, the metropolis, technology, consumer culture, and modern forms of femininity and masculinity. ... Read more