About the Author

MELISSA S. HERBERT is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Hamline University in Minnesota.

Reviews

"Looks at how women in the armed forces deal with perceived conflicts between femininity and being a good soldier through active strategies that accentuate or play down perceptions of masculinity and femininity... Goes a long way toward showing how this distorting pressure impedes the true integration of women and men." --Choice "Working with interview data and with 285 surveys completed by veterans andactive-duty personnel, Herbert shows how military women often adjust their language, dress, hairstyles, comportment, activities, and other characteristics in an effort to shape how they are perceived." --The Chronicle of Higher Education "The book would serve as a valuable undergraduate text to introduce students to martial gender issues." --Sexualities 4 "Seen through Herbert's sharply focused analytical lens, the military is a socio-historical bastion of masculinity. Military service is a rite of passage into masculinity, a sort of finishing school' for men. In addition to questions of ability, women who join the service are suspected of gender transgressions. These management strategies reveal much about how the military controls gender and sexuality." - Jodi O'Brien,, Seattle University