The challenge of warrior women: Gender, race, and militarism in media

Introducing herself and the women who are the subjects of Women Serving in War, the documentary she narrates, Minnesota National Guard Medevac pilot Jennifer Merrill tells viewers, “I’m just a chick who flies … but these ladies, they’re the ones who laid the pathway for me … [They] went through a lot of grief and aggravation to allow us to follow in their footsteps” (Lamke & Halleen, 2014). In the United States, women such as these have had an official military presence since the establishment of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) in World War II (Meyer, 1996). With the end of conscription in 1973, the number of female service members has risen steadily; as of 2010, 14% of enlisted service members and 16% of commissioned officers were women (Patten & Parker, 2011, p. 4). Tanya Biank noted that as 11% of the fighting forces experiencing regular deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, “today’s generation of servicewomen [has] more war service than either their fathers or grandfathers” (2014, p. 5). Yet, in policy, law, and custom women are still Other to the norm of military masculinity (Enloe, 2000; Sjoberg, 2014).