Waging Gendered Wars

Book excerpt: Waging Gendered Wars examines, through the analytical lens of feminist international relations theory, how U.S. military women have impacted and been affected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although women were barred from serving formally in ground combat positions within the U.S. armed forces during both wars, U.S. female soldiers are being killed in action. By examining how U.S. military women's agency as soldiers, veterans, and casualties of war affect the planning and execution of war, Whaley Eager assesses the ways in which the global world of international politics and warfare has become localized in the life and death narratives of female service personnel impacted by combat experience, homelessness, military sexual trauma, PTSD, and the deaths of fellow soldiers.