© 2016 Stephanie Szitanyi ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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© 2016 Stephanie Szitanyi ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DEGENDERING AND REGENDERING: CONTEMPORARY GENDER TROUBLE IN THE UNITED STATES MILITARY By STEPHANIE SZITANYI A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Political Science Written under the direction of Mary Hawkesworth And approved by New Brunswick, New Jersey May 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Degendering and Regendering: Contemporary Gender Trouble in the United States Military By: Stephanie Szitanyi Dissertation Director: Mary Hawkesworth Investigating the US military’s changing self-representations over five decades, this dissertation examines shifting gender regimes in an era of growing gender and sexual equality and explores how these changing gender representations affect civilian-military relations. By using gender as an analytical category, I offer new insights into military operations, which in turn inform practices of citizenship in the contemporary US. Building upon analyses of male dominance, masculinist culture, and homosociality in the military, I depict the constant struggle within the military to preserve and promote particular constructions of masculinity. Using the recent integration of open homosexuality within military ranks, the end of the combat ban for women, and the military’s public acknowledgement of the epidemic nature of sexual assault within its units as focal points, the dissertation analyzes how hegemonic military masculinity attempts to cope with explicit episodes of “degendering” and how it works directly and indirectly to “regender” itself as a system of hetero-male privilege. Informed by interpretivist methodologies, I develop a postpositivist analysis of gendered mechanisms of exclusion within the US military. Analyzing diverse military public discourses ii “against the grain,” I demonstrate how certain masculinized narratives erase women’s roles in the military from public consciousness, placing military service performed by women below a threshold of visibility. Contributing to feminist scholarship that traces the profound effects of militarization, I suggest that these pervasive military discourses sustain a value hierarchy that subordinates the lives and contributions of ordinary individuals to the potent sacrifice of the ultimate (masculine) warriors. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am fortunate to have found a select group of peers and faculty members who have been instrumental to completing this project and earning this degree. Mary Hawkesworth has been a wonderful instructor, advisor, and mentor. Her guidance and unwavering support through the toughest of personal and professional times allowed this project to come to fruition. In moments of doubt, her faith in this dissertation was stronger than my own, and for that I am forever grateful. I would also like to thank the other members of my dissertation committee – Sue Carroll, Mona Lena Krook, and Alison Howell – for their feedback on this project at various stages, and for providing fruitful questions towards its further development. To Ashley Koning, and Amanda Mariliano, who, through a sea of individuals, became two of my greatest friends, and with whom I hope to share a lifetime of experiences and memories. Finally, to my mother, who read every draft of every chapter, and often understood my arguments better than I understood them myself. Thank you. iv DEDICATION To my Mother, for her unwavering support and sacrifice over the last five and a half years. Thank you for continuing to be my greatest fan. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iv DEDICATION................................................................................................................................ v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1 Epistemology, Methodology, and Methods ............................................................................... 5 Literature Review – Militaries as Gendered Institutions ........................................................... 7 Contribution to Literature ......................................................................................................... 27 Chapter Overview ..................................................................................................................... 28 CHAPTER 2: THE ALL-VOLUNTEER FORCE: PATROLLING GENDERED BOUNDARIES THROUGH THE COMBAT BAN ................................................................... 36 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 36 Leaky Borders and Gendered Boundaries: A History of U.S. Combat Exclusion Policy ....... 40 Gendered Subjects: The Masculinist Rational Institution and the Sentimental Leaky Body 48 A Story of Modernization: The Incremental and Deliberate Inclusion of Women ................. 54 The Rational Military Actor and the Feminized Leaky Subject .............................................. 57 Exploiting Women’s Talents vs. Containing Threats .............................................................. 65 The 1980’s: The Leaky Body’s Production of Time Lost ...................................................... 72 The 1990’s: Combat and the Marginalization of Military Sexual Assault .............................. 77 The 2000’s: Medical Treatment and Care of Female Soldiers ................................................ 79 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 82 CHAPTER 3: VIOLATED BODIES: COMBAT INJURIES AND SEXUAL ASSAULT IN THE UNITED STATES MILITARY .......................................................................................... 84 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 84 Studying Sexual Violence: Methodological Difficulties ......................................................... 88 A Culture of Silence ................................................................................................................. 93 Discourses that Disappear Victims of Sexual Violence ........................................................... 95 vi Unique Aspects of Gendered Violence in the Military .......................................................... 100 ‘Victims’ versus ‘Survivors’: Contextualizing Gendered Military Violence ........................ 102 Prove it or you’re Wrong: The Establishment of Military Wounds ..................................... 104 You Did This to Yourself: the Creation of Illegitimate, Self-Inflicted Wounds ................... 106 Rape and Sexual Assault as a Physical Wound ..................................................................... 108 The Permanency of Wounds: Processes of (Selective) Recognition ..................................... 111 Other Invisible Wounds and the Effects of Non-treatment ................................................... 112 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................ 116 CHAPTER 4: SEMIOTIC READINGS OF THE USS MIDWAY MUSEUM: DISAPPEARING WOMEN IN THE MILITARY .................................................................... 119 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 119 Militarization Sans Violence .................................................................................................. 121 The Semiotics of Spatial Configurations: Gendering Memories of War .............................. 125 A Ship of Honor: The USS Midway and the Gendering of Social Memory ......................... 130 Conclusion: Implications of Feminist Understandings of Militarization .............................. 140 CHAPTER 5: TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY MILITARY RECRUITMENT: DEPICTIONS OF GENDER SINCE THE LIFTING OF THE COMBAT BAN............................................. 144 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 144 Research Method .................................................................................................................... 148 Models of Advertising: Gendered Depictions of the All-Volunteer Soldier ......................... 150 Gendered Dynamics in Virtual Recruitment .......................................................................... 156 Regendering of the Military or Degendering of Women ....................................................... 182 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 193 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION - THE FUTURE OF WARFARE: WOMEN’S SYSTEMIC ERASURE FROM THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY ...................... 196 APPENDIX ................................................................................................................................ 206 REFERENCES ..........................................................................................................................