Abstract
It’s My Country Too is an anthology gleaned from letters, diary entries, books, oral histories, and essays by women veterans. Book editors Jerri Bell and Tracy Crow, both veterans, use these women’s voices as the foundation upon which they unravel an historical accounting of women’s service to this country since the American Revolution. From the preface to conclusion, Bell and Crow unapologetically address the invisibility of women in military history and how that invisibility has been used to maintain discriminatory policies against women as both service members and veterans. Analyzing military history through a gendered lens and from a feminist perspective, Bell and Crow manage to honor successfully the women whose stories they tell, grounding those accounts in examinations of social and political backdrops relevant to each woman service member’s time. Too frequently history is an accounting of white accomplishments, unless the history is specific to a point in time or topic (e.g., slavery). The editors include the stories of women of color, and they speak honestly to the truth of how history has ignored and marginalized women of color and their stories. For example, we know Harriett Tubman as an abolitionist but rarely are her contributions with the U.S. Army revealed. In this book, the editors reveal Tubman’s military history and restore her writing to its original format. They are direct in their discussion about how journalist Emma Telford took license in altering Tubman’s story to make it into a stereotyped “Negro” accent.
Organized by era, the book helps the reader understand that women have been involved in this nation’s defense from the beginning, and they join for the same reasons as men—adventure, education, love of country, and to be part of something as important as defense of country. Through the stories and honesty of the authors in their descriptions of dominant social and political paradigms, readers gain the opportunity to understand the faults and failures embedded therein. Bell and Crow expose the gendered cultural context that has historically represented men who join as heroes with strong commitment but women who join as husband seeking, needing direction, wounded, or loose. They take the reader on a journey through the ups and downs of what it means to be a woman willing to serve in the Armed Forces, how it looks different for women and men, and how women’s service has continued to be viewed as having less value than that of men and, therefore, deserving of less attention. At first glance, one feels as if the editors contradict themselves because, from the beginning, they expose the “limited binary” terms in which the media defines women in the military as either “she-roes or victims” (pp. Preface. xv) and then lean in that direction themselves, sometimes getting caught up in stories of “firsts” (first Ranger, first to fly combat) or of women who were sexually assaulted. However, they use these as examples as demonstrations of either how these women were the result of shifting social and political forces or how those forces shifted because of their contributions and visibility as military women.
One of the most interesting aspects of the book, which also makes it an excellent choice for students in social work, psychology, sociology, and gender studies programs, is the section titled Gendered Wars. It is in this section that they get more deeply into an analysis of the intersection of social thought and policy and how one can and does inform the other. Here, the discussion goes beyond policy and addresses how social norms and attitudes toward women in the military impact not only how women are viewed but how they must and do behave while in the Armed Forces. Frank discussion about living under scrutiny ensues from the women veterans whose stories are told, and it is in this discussion that the reader is able to view their own attitudes and thoughts. We come to understand more deeply the message that a result of ongoing gender wars is that a woman’s position, safety, or acceptance in this male dominant structure is not secure but can change with an action as simple as a change of command. Whether the readers are veterans or not, this book will expand their framework when they hear the word “veteran” from a mind-set that focuses immediately on men to one that instantly includes women.