Laura Miller received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University and is currently a National Security Fellow at the John M. Olin Institute. She would like to acknowledge Beth Clifford, Arlene Kaplan Daniels, Michael Desch, Jane Mansbridge, Charles Moskos, and Art Stinchcombe for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and is deeply indebted to General Gordon R.Sullivan for supporting her endeavors and providing such unique access to soldiers while he was Army Chief of Staff. The ideas presented herein are not intended to represent the views of the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense.

While claiming to represent the views of military women on the combat exclusion policy, feminist activists actually represent only the policy preferences of women whose life circumstances are most similar to their own and whose beliefs meet the needs of a more general feminist agenda. Thus, feminists have inadvertently alienated many women they believe they represent. Furthermore, the feminist framing of the debate is neither tailored to fit the specific nature of the military as an organization (one which does not value individualist perspectives) nor the particular circumstances of the lives of military women (particularly enlisted and/or minority women).

Many Army women are puzzled when they see feminists in the media who are pushing to open up combat roles to women, because they are unaware of any women who are interested such roles.1 These feminist activists accept the policy for men as the standard and seek to apply that policy to women. Thus they support making women eligible for the draft and assigning them to combat arms even on a non-voluntary basis when necessary.
Many Army women, however, tend to feel that lobbying for compulsory service for women is regressive, and instead believe that serving in the military and in a combat role should be voluntary for both men and women. When pressed to choose between the status quo and a compulsory policy, women soldiers tend to support the status quo. Ultimately, though, most Army women support a policy matching Army needs with the women's choices, skills and abilities. This is the basic formula used to assign men to occupational specialties.
In this paper I explore the parallel yet sometimes divergent histories of feminism and women's military service, and explain the gap between the two that exists today. I find it problematic, yet understandable, that feminist activists choose an agenda that achieves consistency yet fails to convey the preferences of the women for whom they claim to speak. Here activists must choose between the competing goals of creating a debatable rhetoric, versus representing the sometimes contradictory wishes of women. Yet, when only one feminist agenda has the floor, women whose views are ignored may become alienated from the very feminist movement that struggles to reach them.
Many Army women do call for an end to gender-based policy, and object to studies that treat gender as the only salient variable in their environment. However, these women maintain a belief system about gender that accounts for the influence of biological differences and disparate socialization of the sexes, but does not fall prey to entirely determinist or social constructionist arguments. Army women tend to reject arguments that women and men have the same abilities, but they also refuse to support policy decisions based on generalizations about the average man or woman. They think the military hierarchy and division of labor should be based on evaluations of good leaders and bad, skilled technicians and able communicators, small agile soldiers and soldiers with brute strength. If women are subsequently underrepresented in some fields, they say, so be it. Many women soldiers believe that women who enjoy traditionally female occupations should not be ashamed of their jobs or forced into traditionally male occupations to meet a quota or prove a feminist point.
Leading the movement for policy changes in the armed forces are feminist activists who claim to represent the interests of military women, but who actually represent only one segment of Army women. Army women whose beliefs match those of the activists tend to be officers and/or white. Enlisted women and women of color are more likely to support opening options for women's service, but prefer either the conditions of service remain unequal, or suggest bringing men's policy more in line with that for women. Thus Army women are more likely to oppose drafting women or assigning them to the combat arms, although they support a voluntary option for women who are willing and capable of serving. Minority women in particular have less reason to believe activists' argument that full integration of military women will lead to equality for women in society, because a similar prophecy did not come true as a result of black integration.
To move forward the debates on women in the military (which have tended to be repetitious through the years), I reveal in this paper why feminist activists may need to reexamine their strategies. Feminist arguments that are based on individual rights but do not mention women as serving organizational needs may not speak effectively to an institution that subsumes individual rights for the "greater good." By treating gender differences as entirely socially constructed, activists have failed to equip military women with the tools to understand physical difference or to challenge arguments based on that difference. By focusing on women as victims of sexual harassment, activists have failed to recognize and pass along the strategies of women who have confronted and managed gender conflict despite the hostile environment. Because they treat the military culture's ideal man as accurately reflecting all military men, activists have not yet identified and taken advantage of men who do not fit the stereotype and who would support their goals. Furthermore, they alienate women who simply do not find their male coworkers to be "the enemy."
Finally, I urge feminists to consider a policy agenda that has previously been rejected, but is a compromise and a step forward with which most military women would agree (as would a number of military men). This choice is to open combat roles to women on a voluntary basis, implement physical screening tests that ensure only qualified men and women are admitted, and to abandon the goal of equality in the form of quotas for equality in opportunity.

The data presented in the text come from multiple waves of field research of active-duty Army soldiers from early 1992 to late 1994. I used a multimethod strategy that capture both large-scale attitudinal patterns and individual viewpoints. To collect the data, I traveled to eight stateside Army posts and two national training centers where soldiers conduct war games on a simulated battlefield. I also surveyed troops stationed at U.S. bases in Germany, and lived in Army encampments for ten days in Somalia during Operation Restore Hope (March 1993), for seven days in Macedonia during Operation Able Sentry (July 1994), and for six days in Haiti during Operation Uphold Democracy (October 1994).
In designing the study, I drew on the grounded theory tradition, which was initially proposed by Glaser and Strauss in 1967 to separate the discovery and elaboration of theory from its verification. Rather than preconceiving a theoretical framework and then testing it; the theory was developed out of patterns emerging from the data. (For example, before entering the field I had no idea that the disjuncture between feminist activists and military women even existed, let alone what the nature of that alienation might be.) Thus, my initial approach was inductive (within a range of topics), and I was interested in how people constructed the issues for themselves. Because I was able to re-enter the field a number of times, in later phases I was able to test and further refine some of the theoretical implications emerging after the first waves of data collection.
I collected qualitative data through participant observation, one-on-one unstructured interviews, discussion groups, and informal conversations with soldiers. Given the military context and the sensitive nature of some of the issues, I relied on written notes rather than tape-recording. There was no formal interview schedule: rather I carried a short list of topics I was interested in and to which I could steer the discussion. I typically began interviews or conversations with an open-ended question and then probed when necessary. I preferred to let the interviewees shape the discussion and bring up the issues they found most relevant. Some discussions were only fifteen minutes, taken up for example while waiting in line for dinner; others lasted one to two hours during scheduled interview time or during meals. As I toured different work sites on post or during overseas operations, I was permitted to approach and interview people as they worked. I was able to spend several hours talking with soldiers who were my escorts or with whom I shared accommodations at night.
I also collected large-scale survey data in order to analyze the relationships between soldiers' demographics and their attitudes on a wide range of issues. The ethnographic data were cross-validated by multiple waves of questionnaires totaling over 4,100. The setting for administering questionnaires varied by site. At stateside posts, soldiers most commonly completed surveys in auditoriums, gym bleachers, movie houses, or at their work stations. Those surveyed during overseas missions filled them out wherever they could: in tents set up for dining facilities, while sitting on their cot, in makeshift offices, on the tops of vehicles, or sometimes just sitting on the ground. In all cases the respondents were guaranteed anonymity, and they placed their individual surveys in an open suitcase with other surveys (which was especially important when groups were small).
Soldiers were encouraged to write their own responses if they did not find their opinion represented among the choices, or if they wanted to expand on or introduce an important topic. Many soldiers wrote extensive comments, providing qualitative material that could be tied to demographic data and attitudes on other topics.
This paper focuses on the wave of questionnaires that asked about the women's movement,2 the draft, exclusion of women from combat, and the status of women in the military. This wave includes responses from 980 women. Men's responses on these issues, as well as a discussion of how men's and women's views interact in their daily work are presented in-depth in the author's larger unpublished manuscript (Miller 1995). Statistical analyses of the questionnaire responses often revealed differences by rank, race, and military occupational specialty (MOS). Where significant variation appeared by these variables, I report them along with my qualitative data.
I employed a combination of nonrandom sampling techniques for both the questionnaires and interviews because of the ethnographic emphasis of my study and the impracticality of random sampling in the field or on military posts. Quota sampling was used to approximate the rank, racial, and occupational composition of the Army as a whole. Because of my focus on gender, I oversampled women: women make up only about 12 percent of the Army population, but account for about 40 percent of my sample. Through purposive sampling, I sought experts such as commanding generals, equal opportunity officers, personnel staff members, chaplains, military intelligence officers, and psychologists. The respondents also included veterans of operations in Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Macedonia, Haiti, and numerous other small scale peacekeeping missions, as well as Kurdish relief in Iraq and Hurricane Andrew relief in Florida.
After each wave of data collection, I evaluated the questionnaires, edited them for clarity, and lengthened them with additional questions suggested by the soldiers. One of the benefits of the multimethod, multiwave approach was that the interviews shaped revision of the questionnaire, and the written comments on the questionnaires added to the interview schedule.

The gap between American mainstream feminism and many of the women who serve in the armed forces may have emerged in part from their separate, although at times intersecting, historical background.
Women gained political visibility in the United States in the early 1800s. Upper-class white women lobbied to increase their educational opportunities at the college level; a more varied group joined forces to fight slavery and establish antilynching laws. The first wave of feminism built on this activism as women organized under the unifying banner of female suffrage (Anderson 1993). Part of the rationale that women offered for extending the vote to their gender rested on women's presumed moral superiority to men and the civilizing influence of their participation in the state: "World peace, social harmony and the well-being of humanity will only exist when women get the vote and are able to help men make the laws" (from the early 1800s, cited in Wishnia 1991, 84).
The link between feminist activism and pacifism was formally established in the United States in 1915, when Jane Addams and suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt created the Women's Peace Party, unifying active members of other women's organizations (Wishnia 1991). This political activity, now known as the "first wave" of American feminism, waned after the Nineteenth Amendment was adopted in 1920, although smaller-scale activism continued (Anderson 1993).
The birth of feminism preceded and was generally unconcerned with women's official participation in the armed forces. Women who participated in the Civil War and the Spanish-American War did so either as nurses, as camp followers, or disguised as men (Enloe 1983; Holm [1982]1992). In World War I approximately 13,000 white women served as volunteers in mostly clerical roles in the Navy and Marines, and 21,000 served in the Army and Navy Nurse Corps.3 These changes were initiated by men in government and the military in response to military need (Holm [1982]1992).
Although some people feared that women's wartime military service might subvert the gender norms, those who initiated the inclusion of women did not consider this type of service a challenge to their traditionally prescribed roles. The government intentionally advertised women's participation as a natural extension of their traditional roles in a time of crisis (Holm [1982]1992). Women took care of the home front in support of the men who went off to fight overseas. Moreover, military women during World War I were officially serving with, not in, the armed forces, and were not accorded full military privileges. After the war, most of these women lost their military positions and returned to caring for "home and hearth." Although early feminists did not collectively challenge the exclusion of women from military service, they were developing a rhetoric of rights and roles for women that laid the foundation for future challenges (Rhode 1989).
Women's auxiliary military branches were formed, and an unprecedented 350,000 women participated in World War II (Holm [1982]1992, 100). Yet feminism was barely visible during this time. Women were likely to be better typists then than men, and could "do the work of two men while taking up only half the resources"; these facts translated into a visible contribution to military efficiency (Holm [1982]1992). Furthermore, recruiting campaigns encouraged women to join, to "free a man to fight" (Holm [1982]1992). Again, the demands of the war led to greater inclusion of women and blacks, two previously restricted groups.4 The Women's Army Corps (WAC), however, was the only branch to accept black women as soldiers. The 4,000 who were admitted served mainly in segregated conditions; and only one unit, the 6888th, was called for overseas duty (Holm [1982]1992, 76-79; Moore 1993, 1995).
After World War II, women's participation in the military plummeted again. In 1948 the Women's Armed Services Integration Act was passed, and set activist agendas for decades to come by limiting gender integration with caps on enlistment, promotion, and combat participation for women. The only women to serve in war zone in the Korean War (1950-1953) were 500 to 600 nurses (Holm [1982]1992, 149). During the Vietnam War (1965-1973), five to six thousand women nurses and about 1,500 other military women served in southeast Asia. Fewer than 500 WACs served within the borders of Vietnam, and nonmedical servicewomen were prohibited from serving in combat zones (Holm [1982]1992; 214, 228). When the controversial draft was ended in 1973, Congress and defense planners found that women had to be recruited to fill the demand for qualified personnel in the new All-Volunteer Force (Marsden 1986).
Feminism regained its momentum in the 1960s. Feminist activists and scholars fought for gender equality while men were being drafted to serve in Vietnam. Some of these feminists began to analyze gender, war, and military service. Some continued in the tradition of linking pacifism with feminism; others chose to promote women's military service as the route to first-class citizenship. These views have produced two divergent perspectives on whether women should serve in the armed forces.
Although the rise of feminism and women's integration into the military were somewhat separate events, military women have benefited from feminists' efforts, whether or not those feminists were concerned with the military. Affirmative action lawsuits and the political pressures created by activism when the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was still pending helped to expand women's roles in the military and lift restrictions on their numbers and promotion opportunities. The Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service (DACOWITS) has pursued quality-of-life issues for women, assisting (for example) in efforts to obtain properly fitting uniforms and boots for women when such items were not made to match women's shapes or sizes. Most recently, feminists' outrage at Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearing by the Senate, and the Tailhook scandal have led to a complete overhaul of Army sexual harassment policy; this policy now takes women's complaints more seriously and deals with them much more quickly than in the past.
Yet some feminist goals, beliefs, and agendas contradict or differ from those of military women. While the women's movement campaigned to win equal pay for equal work, military women already were enjoying a system that ostensibly paid by rank, not by job (Holm [1982]1992).5 The pacifist branch of feminism did not condone, and sometimes even condemned, women's participation in the armed forces. Many ERA supporters, however, felt that the only position consistent with gender equity was to support the inclusion of women in the draft and in combat roles. This position alienated mainstream Americans and probably cost the ratification of the ERA (Holm [1982]1992; Mansbridge 1986; Marsden 1986). In the words of one individualist observer: "Those supporting 'equal rights' so bypassed the issue of difference that their clarion call to solidarity rang hollow in most women's ears" (Cott 1986, 57).
The feminist division on women and military service has developed from two separate strands of feminist theory. These strands have been discussed in feminist literature under various labels: relational versus individualist feminism, cultural versus liberal feminism, or difference versus sameness feminism. Feminists located in the first tradition generally adopt a pacifist view and express dismay at women' interest in joining the armed forces.6 The second tradition, however, has produced a group of feminists who use rights-based arguments to push for the greater inclusion of military women. These feminists claim to represent the interests of military women in their very public activities as lobbyists, spokespeople and publishing scholars. Ironically, the policy preferences they advocate do not reflect the position of most of the Army women in my survey. It is the diversity of Army women's opinions, and not only the view represented by feminist activists, that this paper seeks to illuminate.

Individualist Feminists and Advocacy for Military Women
One strand of feminist thinking, identified by Karen Offen as individualist feminism, reflects the liberal foundations of American political thought and American feminism:
[It] privileges the individual, virtually without reference to the community or group. Physiological differences and hence sociopolitical differences are muted, and equality of individuals and their claim to certain "rights" or entitlements, based on an eighteenth-century model devised for male heads of households (not single men), is uncompromisingly asserted. Within individualist feminism, womanly qualities or attributes are necessarily downplayed (1990, 18).

From this framework, individualist feminists argue for the fullest possible inclusion of women in the military, including eligibility for the draft and assignment to the combat arms (Devilbiss 1985, 1990; Holm [1982]1992; Mansbridge 1986; Schroeder 1991; M. Segal 1982, Segal and Hansen 1992; Stiehm 1989, 1981, 1983). This branch of feminism is not necessarily promilitary; rather, it contends "that the best way to insure women's equal treatment with men is to render them equally vulnerable with men to the political will of the state" (Jones 1984, 75). The notion of a link between women's citizenship and military service has a historical precedent in the United States: "[T]he connection made between the obligation to defend the state and the right to share in the exercise of sovereignty was stated forcefully in the Dred Scott decision of 1856" (Jones 1984, 82).
The strongest arguments against women in the combat arms revolve around issues of women's biology. The Persian Gulf War and the numerous peacekeeping operations in the past five years have convinced many people that men and women can live in the field without detriment to unit cohesion or efficiency, and that the American public can tolerate women casualties and POWs (Binkin 1993; Miller 1995; USGAO 1993). The combat roles that have opened to women in this period have been those in which physical strength was not the central issue; thus combat pilot positions have become available but infantry and armor have not.
In pressing for inclusion of women in all military roles, political and scholarly activists explain differences between men's and women's physical capabilities as the result of disparate socialization. Therefore they minimize physical differences between men and women or dismiss them as unimportant to the debate. Consider the following argument by Representative Patricia Schroeder:
The real issue is training. Some women can indeed carry as much weight, throw as far and run as fast as some men in physical strength and endurance. Such athletes as pitching ace Kathy Arendsen, who throws a softball 96 miles per hour, underhand, and Florence Griffith Joyner, who runs the 100 meters faster than O.J. Simpson ever ran while competing for USC, would scoff at the "girls can't throw" argument. These women demonstrate that trained individuals can do anything (1991, 73).

Thus, the abilities of exceptional women are used to suggest a world in which girls would be socialized the same as boys. This world, of course, is not the one in which Army women currently live.
More effectively, these activists argue that physical strength requirements vary by job, and that not all men have great upper body strength. Excluding women as a class when some women qualify and some men do not is therefore an unjust reason for denying women the same opportunities for advancement in the armed services (M. Segal 1982, 271).
To counter the persistent argument that women should not serve because of possible pregnancy, individualist feminists point out that
The average American woman is pregnant for a very small proportion of her life and some women never do become pregnant at all. Also important is the fact that people in combat jobs do not spend most of their time in combat, further reducing the incidence of pregnancy interfering with job performance. The fact that most women can get pregnant is no reason to exclude all women from a particular job, just as the fact that men can get the flu or venereal disease is not used to exclude them from a job (M. Segal 1982, 273).

Furthermore, statistics consistently show that women lose less time in the service because of pregnancy than do men for sports injuries, drug and alcohol abuse and other disciplinary problems (Holm [1982]1992; Stiehm 1989).
Feminists who have chosen to promote women's participation in the military include politicians (notably Representative Pat Schroeder of the House Armed Services Committee), scholars (D'Ann Campbell, M.C. Devilbiss, Mady Wechsler Segal, Judith Hicks Stiehm), military officers (Air Force Major General Jeanne Holm, Ret., Army Brigadier General Evelyn Pat Foote, Ret., Army Captain Carol Barkalow, Army Captain Carolyn Becraft, Ret.), and members of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service (hereafter DACOWITS). Hereafter the term activists will refer to the feminist advocates of women in the military such as those mentioned above.
The DACOWITS was established in 1951 by the Department of Defense to aid in the recruitment of women during the Korean War. Today the committee acts as a watchdog on a range of issues that concern military women. The group is comprised of professional women (and a few men) nominated by members of Congress, who typically serve a three year term on this committee as an extension of their political career.
These and the other feminist activists are to be credited with their role in keeping the spotlight on disparities against military women, and for publicizing military women's contribution. Without them, there is no other public or organized pressure on the armed services and/or the government to continually assess military policies and practices toward women. Whenever the rights of military women come under attack, these activist's protests appear in the media. These women are prominent in the deliberations on women's military roles because they lobby, investigate, report, and write with the intention of representing and improving military women's lives.
Thus the agenda for change is led primarily by women who are former or present military officers or civilian middle- or upper-class professionals. The representatives of military women have not been chosen by military women nor have they been selected by an external authority to be representative of that population. When Army women I interviewed referred to this group, they either spoke very generally about "those who are trying to change things in Washington," or mentioned the DACOWITS or Pat Schroeder specifically. Pat Schroeder thus appears to be the most visible spokeswoman (and indeed she frequently appears in the media speaking to this issue); and the DACOWITS is known primarily because its members make investigative excursions to military posts where they interview women and subsequently submit reports and recommendations to the Department of Defense.
What became apparent during my fieldwork was that the DACOWITS had a reputation among soldiers for having an "agenda," and that commanders were concerned that members' evaluations of their posts be favorable. Men and women soldiers complained to me about the process by which the DACOWITS members collect their data. First, they charged that commanders typically sent soldiers whom they knew to possess a view compatible with that of the DACOWITS to meet with its visiting members. Second, troops complained that instead of anonymous interviews, soldiers had to sign in for small group interviews. This procedure, coupled with the fear that a poor DACOWITS report might hurt one's career (a claim I cannot substantiate but which clearly influenced soldiers' behavior), made some soldiers' feel obliged to give the "party line."
The uniform nature of the DACOWITS views and recommendations despite the ever-changing membership is striking. Programs from annual meetings (located in the Pentagon library) reveal a common format that includes the testimony of women who have been harassed or discriminated against during their service, and women who feel that the combat exclusion policy has hindered their careers. Absent are the testimonies of women who have found harassment-free environments who might share valuable information about such locations. Also absent are any dissenting voices on the issue of women in combat. Thus, the conclusions and the recommendations consistently reflect a single, unconflicted view that appears to represent the wishes of military women.
Filed in the DACOWITS office in the Pentagon are its members' reports from trips to domestic and overseas bases. With considerable effort, I was able to gain access to those files, although I was not allowed to copy any of them. In the hours spent examining those files, one report clearly stood out. This report began with a qualifying statement by the woman who filed it, expressing her hesitance to relate what she knew would be an unwelcome account of her visit. Her conscience persuaded her to file it anyway and take the heat for being unpopular. The controversial content was the vocalization of Army women who did not support opening the combat arms to women. Elaine Donnelly, another former committee member, has also written about being ostracized for even bringing up arguments that question the appropriateness of women in the combat arms. Rather than a format where difficult practical issues were grappled with, Ms. Donnelly felt that "there is an ideological 'songbook' for DACOWITS, and everyone who is associated with the Committee is expected to sing along" (1991, 32).
The literature, public speeches, and policy recommendations of the feminist scholars and activists on this issue all tell one story: of military women who are no different from men and who are anxious to serve in the combat arms. Such unanimity is highly suspect.

Not of One Mind
Media portrayals of the debate on women in combat also depict women soldiers as a monolithic group fighting for rights that men would rather continue to deny them. The media gave extensive coverage to exclusion of women from combat roles in 1992 and 1993. Much of this attention derived from a presidential commission that was established to consider all sides of the conflict and to make policy recommendations. In those two years, out of 23 New York Times and 39 Los Angeles Times stories on women in combat, only two even suggested that some military women might not want to enter the combat arms; one of those mentions was a report of my own survey data (available: Nexis Library: Nexis File: NEWS).7 Nearly all of the military women quoted in these stories were pilots, a rather elite group of commissioned officers. Although military women both for and against the combat restriction testified before the presidential commission, only the latter were quoted in these major newspapers. To the general reader, military women appear to be a single-minded group who want access to combat roles not only for the challenge, but because they believe that such a change will improve their chances of promotion and increase their status in the military.
Army women in my survey, however, hardly agree on the issue of women in combat. Enlisted women and women of color particularly are likely to oppose assigning women to combat military occupational specialties (MOSs). Many express resentment toward officers and civilian activists who are attempting to open combat roles to women. They argue that the activists do not realize the hardships associated with those roles on the enlisted level. Some, like one white NCO with Desert Storm experience, were obviously frustrated: "Who does that Pat Schroeder think she is? Has she ever talked to me? To her? To any of us? If she came here, I'd sure give her a piece of my mind." (Pat Schroeder and the DACOWITS, being most visible to military women, were often the target of their hostilities.)
Whether women would be able to volunteer for such roles or would be compelled to fill them, many Army women do not believe they could successfully perform ground combat roles because of the physical limitations they already confront in their current jobs.

Table 1 shows the survey responses of Army women asked to express their preference for policy on women and combat roles. Roughly three-quarters support allowing women who are interested to volunteer for the combat arms. Many, however, qualified their response verbally or with written comments that the volunteers must be able to meet the physical requirements: "I think if a woman wants to serve in a combat unit and can meet the physical standards, she should be allowed to. There are some women in the Army more capable than some men. I want the most capable soldier up front defending me." The insistence on physical qualification neutralizes any protest that the "standard will be lowered" if women are admitted.
Since the Army already has other entrance requirements and specific requirements for particular MOSs, it seems reasonable to expect that the military could develop and implement physical requirements for heavy labor MOSs, such as the ground combat MOSs. However, the implementation of just such a tool was attempted in 1984, but failed. The Army developed the Military Entrance Physical Strength Capacity Test (MEPSCAT), which categorized MOSs into five categories of physical demand. The test placed 64 percent of jobs to be in the heaviest labor category, and estimated that only 8 percent of the 42 percent of women in those fields could meet the standard (Binkin 1993, 30). Naturally feminists wondered if this test was developed as a barrier to women's participation and questioned whether the purported standards were realistic and relevant for the positions. Ultimately the MEPSCAT was used merely as a "guidance tool" at enlistment, which did not carry much weight and was eventually discarded in 1990 (Binkin 1993).
Therefore, I argue that the construction of new physical standards must include feminists and women serving in many of those heavy labor fields to ensure that the standards reflect the physical demands of the actual jobs. Whether the organization of the workplace and/or equipment design makes the job unnecessarily heavy should also be considered. For example, cable could be portioned in 50 pound reels instead of 100 pound reels.
Some women reject even a qualified voluntary option and prefer the status quo, with combat exclusion rules intact: in my survey this was true of 20 percent of enlisted women, 23 percent of noncommissioned officers (NCOs), and 16 percent of officers.8 One black NCO wrote, "Women should not be forced to serve in a combat role. We are the fruit bearers of the world. We do not have the physical ability to withstand as much as our fellow man. Yes, we try to keep up to a certain degree in order to make it, but let's face it, we are not strong enough." One enlisted woman of color ("other race" category) based her opinion on her experience in Desert Storm:
I believe women should be kept out of direct combat units such as the infantry and armor. Combat support units are fine. I served in a combat support unit during the war for 6 months and there were many more problems for the female soldiers out there than there were for the males (physically speaking). If the Army approved women in direct combat units it would only cause the unit to become less efficient.

These women's statements demonstrate that such views are not espoused only by sexist men, and that feminists also may need to address and persuade some military women to accept their agenda.
Officers are more likely than other soldiers to support a policy that treats men and women alike, compelling women to serve in the combat arms if the Army needs them. Of those who support a combat policy that would assign women to combat roles on the same terms as men, 13 percent were officers, as opposed to only 3 percent of enlisted women and 4 percent of NCOs. One enlisted woman, a truck driver, feels that compelling someone take to a position, once they have enlisted, is a fair policy: "I believe this is a volunteer Army so therefore, women should be just as susceptible to combat as men. If not, then go work at a day care center. After all, a man in a combat role (same rank structure) gets paid the same as a woman." Another enlisted woman speculated about the impact of her choice: "I believe it should be a regulation that both men and women be required to enlist [in] combat, but I believe the rate of females joining the Army would distinctly decrease." One captain qualified her choice at length:
I do not think it would be equitable to allow women to volunteer for combat roles. The only equitable treatment is for both men and women to be compelled to serve in combat. (We cannot allow our National Security to depend upon men and women volunteering.) If only those women who wanted to were allowed to volunteer, there would be resentment among the men who can be compelled. While I do believe that women should be compelled just as men, we also need to use some common sense. In the Army, the [combat] units which most all women are physically capable of serving in are Armor and Mechanized Infantry. Units such as Light Infantry, Rangers and Special Forces are different. Women should not be compelled to serve in these types of units because of the waste of taxpayers money when a large percentage fail and need to be moved. Maybe very fit women could volunteer for these units if they could meet the same standards as men.

Interestingly, the voluntary option tends to be thrown out of the debate by both those trying to keep women out of the combat arms and those trying to make the policy exactly the same for men and women. The Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces omitted the voluntary position even before their deliberations began. Their rationale was that they could not consider a voluntary assignment policy because it would create a double standard (Presidential Commission 1992). The commission then went on to spend much time and money debating a compulsory policy versus the status quothe latter, of course, being a double standard. In the end, even some of their recommendations were to maintain a double standard in the form of total exclusion in some fields in some branches of the military.
I asked women who supported the voluntary option whether they supported a double standard for men and for women. Many responded that the voluntary option should be available for men as well. When I added a survey question on combat policy that included as a choice a voluntary option for both men and women, 46 percent of the women chose this answer (N=768). One white enlisted woman in the medical field reasoned, "Anything that needs to be accomplished should only be accomplished by volunteers. That is how you find the efficient workers, dedicated to doing the job. If something is forced upon someone unwillingly, that individual will not put forth 100% due to lack of interest or pressure." The military counters that wars cannot be fought and won on the basis of public support and volunteers (which may be particularly true for protracted wars).
In one of the last waves of the survey I first gave women the typical three policy options for women's service in the combat arms, along with an additional category, "It doesn't really matter to me what is decided." Their answers broke down similar to those reported in Table 1, with only 3 percent selecting the new category that it does not matter. Then the survey asked them their position if the Army had to decide between only two policy options, the status quo or a compulsory policy. Surprisingly, 65 percent of the women chose the status quo, 24 percent chose the compulsory policy, and 11 percent said it did not matter (N=96). While this sample is small, it does demonstrate that we cannot assume that women who support the voluntary option would choose the compulsory option if given only two options.

As stated earlier, feminist activists promoting women's military service also view the draft as necessary for securing equal status for women. Table 2 shows the results of a question asking soldiers "If the draft were reinstated, which of the following policies would you support?" Rank and race are factors in women's division over a position on women and the draft; their effects are shown separately in this table for readability. Nearly half of the officers believe that "women should be drafted and eligible for combat roles," compared with only about one quarter of enlisted women and NCOs. By race, white women (40 percent) were more likely to support this option than women of other races (about 25 percent). A white lieutenant's view paralleled the civilian activists' philosophy: "If women want equal rights in this country, they're going to have to accept equal responsibility."
On the other end of the spectrum, those entirely opposed to drafting women are 35 percent enlisted, 28 percent NCOs, and only 20 percent officers. By race, Hispanics were most likely to oppose the draft (46 percent), followed by blacks, women of "other" races, and finally whites (34, 29, and 24 percent respectively). Here again, many women expressed resistance to compelling anyone into military service. In the words of a white enlisted woman in communications, "I don't believe anyone should be forced to do something they cannot handle or don't believe in. I believe that all should be allowed freedom to choose destiny. Only the individual can determine what is best for him/herself, not society and definitely not the government." In agreement is a black enlisted woman who questioned whether the draft is equitable: "I also believe the draft is biased and should be eliminated. No one should do what they don't want to. That goes for anything."

The survey also asked women whether they felt they were physically capable of serving in the infantry or armor. As displayed in Table 3, the results vary significantly by rank and race. Tables 1 and 2 show that white women and/or officers are most likely to support assigning women to the combat arms, so it may not be surprising that whites and officers were also most likely (at 46 and 52 percent) to believe they could meet the physical challenges. A white lieutenant stated, "At 5'9" I'm not exactly petite. I see men allowed the chance to serve in a combat role who I know I could out-perform." A black NCO challenged the Army's assumption that men are automatically fit for combat roles because of their sex: "Just because the Army allows men to enlist in a combat MOS, doesn't mean a man is more capable because they fail [physical fitness] tests, MOS proficiency tests, and some are overweight. That's not a description of combat ready." Roughly half of Hispanic, black and other women of color believe they would be able to carry out the physical demands of the most stressful combat MOSs. A black enlisted truck driver said, "If women want to volunteer for the combat arms, that's on them, because they know what their bodies can take. I can say I enjoy my MOS and sometimes, I have to attempt things I know I'm incapable of doing, but I do what I can."
Women vary somewhat by rank as to whether they would volunteer for a combat role if the Army permitted it. Overall, however, the great majority would not volunteer: only 11 percent of enlisted women, 13 percent of NCOs, and 14 percent of officers would do so (N=940). These numbers demonstrate that support for the voluntary combat option reflects support for a principle of choice for those who qualify, rather than women's personal intentions to transfer to combat roles.9
Many Army women agree that serving in combat roles can improve opportunities for promotion. Some point out, however, that men in noncombat roles face the same disadvantage in relation to men in combat roles; thus not only women are limited in this way. (Although men, of course, have the option to join the combat arms.) Table 4 shows Army women's opinions, by rank, on whether combat exclusion hurts promotion opportunities for enlisted women and for officers. My findings show no consensus among military women about the impact of combat exclusion on their opportunities.

Those most likely to think that combat exclusion does not limit enlisted women's opportunity are NCOs (43 percent), enlisted women who have advanced through the lower enlisted ranks. An NCO in intelligence and communications wrote, "If a soldier knows his or her job and does it well, they will be promoted on those good merits. I don't believe promotion relies solely on unit assignment." In contrast, a lieutenant in the medical field believes that women will be held back, no matter what policy is adopted: "I'm not sure it is based on combat exclusion. More on males dominance of the professionthe 'Old Boys Club.'" Across the board, however, about 50 percent of women of all ranks agreed that exclusion hurts enlisted women's chances for promotion.
Officers are more likely than enlisted women and NCOs to feel that combat exclusion hinders their careers: 61 percent, as opposed to 38 and 49 percent respectively. Officers feel a greater impact of being excluded from certain fields because of the nature of the promotion structure:
Career security and promotion to the higher ranks require individual officers to pass through a series of types of assignments, including various levels of supervisory responsibility and training (both civilian and military, technical and
general)Deviation from the standard pattern in either nature or timing lowers promotion chances. Each step has an optimum window of opportunity as a function of the officer's year group and previous step. Failure to get one's "ticket punched" at each career station at the appropriate time is hazardous to one's career (Segal 1990: 168).

Clearly women who are career officers are at a disadvantage when certain assignments central to the function of the Army (command over groups that include combat elements) are off-limits to them.
Among women who are not particularly interested in combat roles are those who wonder about the indirect effect of making those roles available to women, and might choose to leave the Army on the basis of those concerns.10 One Hispanic enlisted woman wrote,
There's an issue that wasn't touched, and I'm concerned with. Since I volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army under the present regulations, if these were to change, say women allowed or required to serve in combat, would I (or any other female who feels the same way I do) be allowed to terminate the contract with the Army without counting as dishonorable discharge?

Another option would be to have a "grandmother clause," whereby women who entered when women were not eligible for combat could not be assigned involuntarily to combat roles.
One anticipated indirect effect on other servicewomen of a change in the combat exclusion policy is that a change in the requirements for women on the Army Physical Fitness Test might follow. Fear of this change stems from the arguments of opponents of women in combat, who contend that if women want to be treated equally, they should be required to meet standards equal to those set for men across the board. This test is routinely conducted to evaluate soldiers' fitness; it includes two mile timed runs, two minutes of sit-ups, and two minutes of push-ups. While intended only to measure fitness and not strength, soldiers consistently treated it as a measure of physical ability. It is normed by age and gender, and does not vary by MOS.

Table 5 shows that women vary by rank on whether the fitness requirements should be the same or different for men. The majority of women of all ranks believe that the standards should remain different, but officers are more likely than enlisted women and NCOs to think they should be the same (24 percent, compared with 14 and 13 percent respectively). Some say a difference in standards does not mean that women should always do less than men, but that each gender would be tested according to its strengths and weaknesses: "Less pushups for women, less sit-ups for menphysiological considerations" (from a white NCO). One Hispanic captain suggested that physical fitness tests should vary by job demands "In the MOS that I am in, I think that the PT test should have different standards. The PT standards should not be along the same line as the standards for infantry. The mission requirements should have an impact." Many women, such as one Desert Storm veteran, believe that physical limitations should not affect women in all fields: "Our bodies and limitations are different. And because we can't run like 18 year old men, our careers shouldn't be jeopardized!" Another woman, a major, warned against setting unrealistic standards: "Don't force women to use anabolic steroids to be the same."
Media coverage and feminist activists lobbying on behalf of military women in Washington have presented an image of military women who see no difference between men's and women's abilities and are eager to take on combat roles. My ethnographic work and the questionnaires used in this study, however, demonstrate that this image represents only one segment of Army women (most likely white women and/or officers); dissension exists not only between men and women, but among women as well.

Army Women on Sexual Difference
Most Army women find sexual difference relevant to the debates about combat assignment, and therefore believe that advocates who claim this difference to be irrelevant are detached from the reality of their daily lives. They do not think, however, that sexual differences apply to everyone in the same way; therefore they contend that generalizations should not restrict all members of either gender from acting outside those categories. That is, even if most women cannot perform certain tasks, those who can do so should not be excluded. On the other hand, Army women argue that women should not be forced into roles for which they are unqualified or uninterested so that gender proportions can be achieved in all fields. Unlike many feminists, particularly those advocating women in the military, Army women do not view the acknowledgment of differences between the sexes as necessarily antiwoman. They make sense of the conflicting information they have received about the appropriateness of women in combat roles by believing that sexual difference is moderately relevant.
As shown in Table 1, most Army women think the military should lift restrictions on women's assignments, and should use physical skills tests, as they do for other areas, before a soldier is assigned. Army women agree with activists that gender-based distinctions in work are no longer needed. Yet rather than pushing to make women subject to the draft or to service in the combat arms, Army women regard compulsory policies as regressive. They prefer to work toward a policy whereby no one is forced into a combat role.11
Army women tend not to believe that women could do anything men can do if only they were socialized differently. They do believe, however, that some percentage of women will always outperform some percentage of men. They think assignments should be determined by women's choice, ability, and military need, not gender. Many do not want to do a disservice to women by assigning them to jobs they cannot perform successfully, thereby lowering the evaluation of women's contribution to the service.
During interviews, a number of women said they would prefer that work done predominantly by women be considered as valuable as work done predominantly by men. Many reject the idea that "men's work" is necessarily more challenging or more important than "women's," or that taking on such work should be their goal. Women who served in overseas operations pointed out that communication and supply units are often just as crucial as combat units (if not more) in high-tech missions and peacekeeping operations. Many Army women I spoke with do not feel that they personally should have to take on men's traditional jobs, against their wishes or best interests, to prove someone else's larger point. Feminism, they feel, should not contribute to devaluing jobs in which women predominate, especially in the military, where wages for such jobs are not lower than in "men's work." This perspective exists among feminists, but is not expressed by feminists lobbying on behalf of military women. Alice Rossi, a prominent feminist, wrote that cultural determinists
had gotten themselves into an untenable position. Instead of replacing outdated biological theories with new, accurate knowledge, they were forced to deny that there are any physiological differences between men and women.Difference is a biological factwhereas equality is a political, ethical and social concept. No rule of nature or of social organization says that the sexes have to be the same or do the same things in order to be social, political, and economic equals (cited in Degler 1990, 40).

Interviews with Army women and men also suggest that activists should separate military men from military culture: even though the culture supports misogynist values, not all men buy into them or are opposed to women in the military.

As noted earlier, activists lobbying for women in the military are professional women: lawyers, scholars, politicians, and retired officers. As such, they have much more education, income, and status than all but a few enlisted women. They may tend to interact more with officers because they are more similar to officers in class and race. (Most of the activists are white.) As with officers, physical strength is unimportant to their occupation; as a result they may undervalue its significance in other fields. Activists may not value enlisted women's opinions about physical demands, but may consider these women unenlightened victims of false consciousness. These differences among women reveal the presence of something more than male/female conflict, and show that combat roles do not carry the same risks and rewards for all women.
One black captain commented on the division between those who speak for servicewomen and Army women themselves: "I think that the female[s] that [want] the same as men should speak for themselves. And not for all women." Although most Army women support the option for women to volunteer for combat roles, they do not agree with their advocates who support the draft or compulsory assignment to the combat arms for women as a means of reaching equality with men.
The gap between most Army women and those feminists who claim to be their advocates is not unique to military women; it reflects problems facing modern feminism on other fronts. Black feminists have revealed a similar split between mainstream feminism (on one hand) and working-class and poor women and women of color on the other. The latter, they report, have often felt alienated from mainstream feminism throughout much of its history because of differences in priorities stemming from race and class distinctions: "We were disappointed and disillusioned when we discovered that white women in the movement had little knowledge or concern for the problems of lower class and poor women or the particular problems of non-white women from all classes (hooks 1981, 188. Also see Davis 1981; Giddings 1982; hooks 1984). The career-centered nature of the activist agenda for military women has also been apparent in mainstream feminism: "Women from lower class groups had no difficulty recognizing that the social equality women's liberationists talked about equated careerism and class mobility with liberation. They also knew who would be exploited in the service of this liberation" (hooks 1984, 60).
Rights-based feminist activists reject arguments for women's exclusion from combat as essentialist or determinist because of the emphasis on gender differences. Therefore they may tend to assume that Army women's assertions that men and women differ and in some cases should fill different roles are based on ignorance or false consciousness. The lives of activists and most Army women are situated differently, however; as a result, some issues are more relevant for one group than for the other, for reasons related to occupation, class, and race. In the following section I address those differences and why they pertain to this topic.

Rank Differences among Army Women
The advantages and disadvantages of taking on a combat role weigh differently for officers than for enlisted personnel. Officer women are more likely to experience the limitations of not serving in combat roles, and therefore are represented by civilian activists who are attempting to secure access to those roles. Enlisted women are likely to regard combat roles as more burdensome than beneficial, and to have other priorities in their lives. Although enlisted women are likely to agree with some officers that women who qualify should have the right to enter the combat arms, they are likely to object to those who contend that men and women have the same capabilities and that women should be drafted and assigned to MOSs on the same terms as men are now.
Charles Moskos first noted that enlisted women and officers differed on the issue of combat when he conducted an ethnography of women soldiers stationed in Honduras. He found that
Many of these officers had given priority to a military career over marriage and family plans and now realized that their careers were handicapped by the female combat exclusion rule.Enlisted womenwere less subject to disappointment.[They] generally did not see themselves in long-term army roles, especially in nontraditional assignments.Enlisted women foresaw their eventual life's meaning in family or in work outside of the military (1985, 31-32).

Combat roles are quite different for officers than for enlisted soldiers. For officers, such roles are generally extensions of skills they already employ: leadership of a structure that includes combat units, or piloting in offensive missions as opposed to defensive or support roles. For enlisted combat roles, however, women would have to take on entirely new tasks to be trained for the infantry, tank crews, and combat engineering. In the latter positions, which will likely be the last to be opened to women, concerns over physical strength and intimate contact between the sexes would be most relevant. As combat soldiers on the front lines of a war, enlisted women also would be more likely to die than would commanding officers.
Rank differences have class implications as well, which tend to structure women's priorities.12 All officers, who account for 16 percent of Army women, have college degrees, are more likely than enlisted women to be career soldiers, and are predominantly white (75 percent) (DEOMI 1993). They are less likely to have children either upon entering the service or during their career, and are more likely to believe their command opportunities are limited because they are not allowed to command combat units. Thus, for officers, the benefits of serving in a combat role outweigh the drawbacks.
Enlisted soldiers, who make up 84 percent of Army women, typically enter with a high school diploma (though many may take some college classes during their enlistment) and are disproportionately black (47 percent) (DEOMI 1993). They are less likely to make the military a career, to hit a glass ceiling, or to feel that they are unfairly deprived of the benefits of serving in the combat arms. They are also likely to enter with children and to have children while in the service. Enlisted jobs traditionally considered "men's work" can be very physical; as revealed in the preceding section, many women think they would not be successful in jobs even more physically demanding than their present occupations. For many enlisted women, the benefits of serving in a combat role are not self-evident.
Enlisted women are more likely to focus on other priorities that are far more relevant for them, such as gender inequities in health care and child care. As one black NCO commented in her survey, "All females are not the same, for example health, strength and family responsibilities/commitment." Two Gulf War veterans had other occupational concerns; they asked me why all the emphasis was on opening combat roles, when they had to fight to be allowed to perform their assigned jobs during the war because of vague, gender-based "risk rules" restricting their movement.
The women I interviewed often perceived rank differences on these issues. Some enlisted women described officers as "living in their own world" or being "on another planet." A black enlisted woman was not alone in asserting that, "Female superiors feel as if they have to prove themselves and normally treat lower enlisted females unfairly." Some women officers acknowledged that they were stricter with women, in part because they felt that they were being scrutinized themselves by their commanders, who were on the lookout for favoritism. Officers, however, sometimes view some enlisted women with dismay, illustrated by one white Captain: "In the lower enlisted ranks especially, there are too many single mothers, pregnancies, poor performance, etc." Several officers expressed concern that such behavior lowers the status of military women overall because some men generalize the behavior of these women to all military women.
While rank differences have been at least acknowledged by scholars (Moskos 1985; Stiehm 1989), these differences do not work their way into the activists' agenda or portrayal of military women. The distinction between the nature of combat roles for officers and enlisted is also absent from the public debates. Instead, military women are represented as unanimous in demanding access to the combat arms as a means of career enhancement and a path to equal treatment.
Race Differences among Army Women
Race differences also influence women's positions. These are intertwined to some degree with rank differences, as suggested by the underrepresentation of women of color among officers and the overrepresentation among the enlisted ranks. Out of 71,985 women in the Army, 47 percent are white, 44 percent are black, 4 percent are Hispanic, and the remaining 5 percent are other women of color. Army men (524,300), in contrast, are 62 percent white, 28 percent black, 4 percent Hispanic, and 6 percent "other race" categories (DEOMI 1993).Thus both black men and black women are overrepresented in the Army, because blacks make up only 12 percent of the civilian population; Hispanics are under represented, as they account for 9 percent of civilians (Rosenfeld and Culbertson 1992).
Because class intersects with race, black and Hispanic women may be more likely than white women to depend on their military service to support them and their households. Black women in the Army, followed by Hispanic women, are more likely than white women to re-enlist and to be single parents (Moore 1991). Hispanic women are likely to have family members other than spouses and children living with them (Moore 1991). All women of color are likely to have the added burden of dealing with racism both inside and outside the service. Perhaps the effects of race and class and gender are reflected in a black NCO's assessment of why black women are less likely than whites to be interested in combat roles: "We've suffered enough already in life, why would we want to take on anything more?"
Women of color also have less reason to believe that lifting combat exclusion rules will result in equality for women. The history of blacks' service in the military particularly during times of war (beginning with the Revolutionary War) is consistently marked by the hope that their service will earn them respect and equal treatment both in the service and by American society (Moore 1993, 1995; Terry 1984; Westheider forthcoming). Sadly, that history is also marked by disappointment when such aspirations were not realized.
Research on the experiences of women of color in the armed forces is quite limited. Historical accounts of black women's military service have surfaced, but no recent studies reflect the issues faced today by black women. For example, some black women face accusations that they have won their achievements only because they count as both blacks and women in equal opportunity evaluations of their unit. One woman began to cry as she told me how offended she was by the notion that "Black women have it made" (an opinion I also heard in interviews with non-blacks). In defense of her view, she told her personal story of getting everything except "her way" in job assignments and deployment overseas. Although race and gender variables appear in quantitative tables of equal opportunity surveys, more ethnographic studies are needed to explain the context behind the numbers.
Historical studies on Hispanic women in the military are virtually lacking. The few existing surveys find that Hispanics often respond more like whites than like blacks (Rosenfeld 1994, Rosenfeld and Culbertson 1992). Reports from soldiers and my own observations in the field suggest that when blacks and whites socialize separately, Hispanics may appear in either group but rarely form their own. Hispanics do not always feel that they benefit from equal opportunity efforts; one enlisted woman wrote, "I'm hispanic, we get the end of anything due to being a minority in a predominantly Black and White Army." Another Hispanic woman said she felt that Hispanics are subject to more discrimination than blacks because "a lot of Hispanics have an accent on top of a visual difference." Nothing has been written about other women of color, whose numbers are quite small (e.g., 516 Native Americans and 1,524 Asian Americans in the entire Army) (DEOMI 1993).
The distinctions among women of color presented here and in the scarce prior research, teach us that military women of color cannot all be lumped together and regarded as thinking alike. Such distinctions should be investigated further in future research. My data do suggest, however, that minority women and/or enlisted women are more likely to have overriding priorities that make serving in the combat arms the least of their concerns or even an undesirable option.

The feminist activists' manner of arguing the case for expanding women's roles in the military may not be the most effective way to persuade members of the military organization in which they seek change. Indeed, the activists' arguments may have alienated the very constituency for which they claim to speak, costing them legitimacy among those who should be their allies.
First, framing the debate as an issue of women versus men alienates men who would support the expansion of military women's roles, as well as women who find allies in men. By representing a minority view of military women among the view of all military women, activists have alienated women who disagree and who feel they have no alternative way to voice their concerns. Consequently, to military leaders who are aware of divergent viewpoints among their troops, the activists appear to be out of touch with Army life.
Second, by dismissing arguments about differences in strength between genders with references to Amazons and Olympic athletes, rights-based activists have left military women to explain and manage their physical limitations on their own. Army women would find integration easier if women could do what men can do, but many are reminded constantly that this is not the case in their current occupation.
Third, activists who argue that women can manage hand-to-hand combat with an enemy often simultaneously portray military women as crippled by sexual harassment. Many male soldiers treated these situations as comparable and contradictory. In one Los Angeles Times story (19 July, 1992), for example, a Navy pilot commented that "the message from Tailhookwhere half of the victims were naval officerswas that women cannot defend themselves." Thus, opponents of expanding women's roles find it incongruous to argue that women are helpless victims of male harassment, but that they could defeat a man in combat. While this comparison is clearly problematic (presumably we do not expect women to use the same tactics to deal with a life-threatening attack from an enemy that they have prepared to meet as they would against surprise attacks from men who are supposedly on their side). Such simultaneous agendas, however, work against one another in the minds of soldiers who do not carry the analysis beyond the initial connection and have not heard counter arguments (other than the ones I offer during the interviews).
When activists discuss sexual harassment and the combat exclusion policy, they usually argue that harassment would decrease if women had the same policy as men because women would then be viewed as equal contributors. Because I detected that women rejected this reasoning, I added a question to a later wave of surveys asking: "How would opening combat roles to women affect the amount of sexual harassment in the military?" Of the 472 responses from women, 61 percent said sexual harassment would increase, 28 percent said it would make little difference, 2 percent said sexual harassment would decrease, and 9 percent were unsure. (Men's responses were virtually identical.) Army women tended to see harassment as either irrelevant to women's standing, or as resistance toward their presence that would only increase as they entered the most elite of male bastions. (See Miller 1995 for elaboration of this connection.)
Fourth, and a more subtle point, feminists' arguments for integrating women into the military rest primarily on the demand for equal rights of women as individuals. Yet it may be problematic to argue for individual rights in an organization where even the most privileged members have sacrificed some of their rights for the good of the military as a whole. This organization is particularly unwilling to sacrifice efficiency for the sake of individual rights because the possible stakes are life and death, not reduced profit margins. For this reason the armed forces have justified excluding people from service because of their age, weight, and mental and physical ability; they have closed certain MOSs, such as piloting, to those with color blindness or less than perfect vision. The problematic nature of relying solely on civil rights arguments in the military also emerges in the debate about allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the armed forces (see Miller 1994). As noted earlier, women initially were allowed to join the military because the leaders viewed their participation as necessary to the war effort, not as a concession based on demands for equal rights.
Finally, virtually no research has examined how military women may contribute uniquely to their workplace, although it is noted frequently that women enter the service with higher mental and aptitude test scores than men. Rights-based feminists downplay gender differences because arguments based on difference are used to exclude women from heavy-labor MOSs and to channel them into administrative work. During my interviews, however, soldiers described how women contribute to nontraditional worksites as well. One man I interviewed was in charge of heavy equipment maintenance, including tanks. He remarked that when women were placed on his team, they took better care of the tools and equipment than the men, worked more carefully at their tasks, and kept their areas cleaner and better organized. The men on the team also acquired these habits, thus improving the status of the work unit overall. Research on women in the trades parallels these findings, and could be used to support the contention that women are a valuable asset in nontraditional fields.
This body of work shows consistently that although women sometimes are slower than men at completing their work, they work more safely and more accurately, and deliver a superior product (Martin 1988; Walshok 1981). Arguing from the viewpoint of increased performance is not only more appealing to the military; it also improves women's image and is harder to refute. Without favorable evaluation of women's work in nontraditional fields, initiatives to place women in the combat arms appear to opponents as an affirmative action move unconcerned with women's qualifications or impact on the unit.

The problem with feminist advocacy on behalf of women in the armed forces is thus two-fold. First, while claiming to represent the views of military women, activists actually represent only the policy preferences of women whose life circumstances are most similar to their own and whose beliefs meet the needs of a more general feminist agenda. Inadvertently, thus, feminists have alienated many women they believe they represent. Second, the feminist framing of the debate is neither tailored to fit the specific nature of the military as an organization (one which does not value individualist perspectives) nor the particular circumstances of the lives of military women.
Many Army women feel that they are misrepresented by the feminist activists. Army women who believed they had no avenue for communicating their views were eager to register their protests through my survey. These women interpret feminist activists' position to mean that they do not know or care much about enlisted and/or minority women's lives or interests. Several Army women asked me who had introduced the issue of sending women into combat, because neither they nor any of the women they know have any interest in changing the combat exclusion policy. Moreover, military women who find allies in men and military men who favor women's filling any role for which they can qualify resent the assumption that men are "the enemy." Ironically, the putative advocates of women in the military may have forfeited the support of even those Army men and women who agree with their policy goals.
Dorothy Smith (1987) calls for a feminist sociology that grounds theory in women's everyday experiences. The consequence of ignoring women's spheres, she argues, is the production of knowledge that is alienating and detached from the lives of real women. My investigation of Army women reveals that this population is hardly the monolithic group that public activists and media coverage would have us believe. I suspect that variation in opinion also exists between services, since they vary in occupational composition, percentage of women present, and representation of women by such factors as race and rank.
The women's movement was founded to give women more choices. Feminists' representation of women in the military shows that activists who promote policy not generated by the affected women may alienate those women. If this movement is to progress toward greater representation, it must advance beyond merely offering women a second prescribed path. As one feminist scholar points out, "Feminists can ill afford to adopt a corrective strategy of silencing other female voices. An imposed unity of correct views can never be an appropriate goal for a movement devoted above all to the awakening of female consciousness" (Kay 1990, 85).
The dilemmas of representation found in the Army case parallel those in mainstream feminism, which concern criticisms by women of color and/or poor and working-class women. Mainstream feminists claim to welcome "feminisms," but many women still feel excluded. While working to "add on" class bias and racism to their agenda, more highly privileged feminists face an even greater challenge in deciding what to do when minority and working-class women's views clash with their own. As other groups voice their concerns, feminist activists will no longer be able to ignore those groups' opinions or to attach a label of "false consciousness" without revealing their own class and race bias. When agendas clash, how can one group not suppress feminists working toward conflicting goals? In the words of bell hooks, "while feminists have increasingly given 'lip service' to the idea of diversity, we have not developed strategies of communication and inclusion that allow for the successful enactment of this feminist vision "(1990, 190).
Feminist scholars and activists must avoid being repelled by women's arguments that rest partly on biological difference. Certainly, physical differences between men and women have often supported reductionist and determinist arguments which are used to justify existing systems that oppress women. Army women, however, discuss physical differences without accepting reductionism or determinism. This understanding allows them to adapt some elements of the workplace to their abilities or body type without shame or a sense of admitting defeat.13 Their pragmatic frameworks for understanding gender point to new directions for feminist action.
To dismiss the relevance of physical demands in the workplace as regressive or as evidence of false consciousness is to reject much that Army women have to offer about surviving in a hostile environment. Feminist biologist Lynda Birke suggests that the next step for feminism is
to move away from reductionism and to think about "non-reductionist" approaches to biology, in which the organism, or other biological unit, is seen in terms of a dialectical relationship with its environmentthis kind of approach allows for greater complexity and flexibility, as well as the possibility that the "biology" may itself be changed as a function of that unit's environmental and historical context (1986, 169).

Deborah Rhode has come to believe that "To pronounce women either the same or different leaves men as the standard of analysis. Further progress toward gender equality requires an alternative framework that focuses not on difference per se, but on the disadvantages that follow from it" (1990, 204). Rhodes suggests that we develop an analytic tool "that emphasizes not biological distinctions but the consequences of recognizing them in particular social, political, and economic circumstances" (1990, 210). Opinions expressed by Army women also demand that we re-assess whether the division of labor between men and women must be equal in all fields if women are to be equal citizens.
The dilemma of choosing between a consistent and liberal rhetoric and the complex and often contradictory preferences of real women is not unique to this field. As noted earlier, the ERA was likely lost when anti-feminists forced feminists to declare the highly unpopular but concordant position that women should be drafted and assigned to combat the same as men (Holm [1982]1992; Mansbridge 1986; Marsden 1986). More recent scholarship has argued that pro-choice rhetoric about the nature of the fetus may make the position easier to defend, but does not address the real conflicts many pro-choice women experience about abortion. Thus pro-choice rhetoric has become increasingly alienating (Avalos-Bock 1995; Wolf 1995). Feminists from other countries have found mainstream American feminism less relevant for them because of its distinctively American liberal foundation. They believe that its scholarship and activism often prioritize a particular, class-relevant, Western political agenda over the concerns of many women's actual lives: "We want to emphasize concrete problems not ideological attitudes" (Anna Hradilkova, a Czech feminist, cited in Elshtain 1995). So while as feminists we may wish to discuss women's physiology under the conditions of equal socialization, in pursuing a policy agenda we must be attentive to the abilities of women who are in the service today.
To resolve such conflicts feminist activists could take one of at least two positions. First, they could abandon the claim of accurately representing the interests of a majority of military women. They could argue that what military women want is irrelevant; and that we did not poll men before deciding on a policy for them. Much like the Army claims that individual preferences must be subsumed for needs of national security, so too could feminists claim that the goal of equality of women and men outweighs individual priorities. From this position, feminists could continue to argue that women should be as subject to the draft and assigned to the combat arms as men, although they could add their support for realistic and relevant strength standards for heavy labor military occupations.
Another option for activists is to embrace the multiplicity of women's views, and accept a middle ground position as a compromise or even stepping stone. Most Army women would support a policy that allows women to volunteer for the combat arms if they qualify, but would not involuntarily assign them. Rather than reject the voluntary option as "unequal" with men, feminists could accept it as more equal than the current policy, and hope that women's performance will help break ground for the future. Again, any feminist position will have to support physical entrance requirements to prevent the assignment of women who would not be capable at their jobs, and to illustrate that all men by virtue of their sex do not meet the standards either. Moreover, this policy will prevent a backlash against military women from the perception that the standards will be lowered to put people's lives at risk for sake of affirmative action. This intermediate position would indeed represent the interests and preferences of most Army women. It would also help bridge the gap between activist leaders and Army women.

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Enlisted NCOs Officers

I am satisfied with the
present Army regulations
that exclude women from 20% 23% 16%
direct combat roles.

I think that women who
want to volunteer for the 77 73 71
combat arms should be
allowed to do so.

I think that women
should be treated exactly
like men and serve in the 3 4 13
combat arms just like men.
___ ___ ___
100% 100% 100%
(N) (509) (308) (149)

Total N=966

Enlisted NCOs Officers

Women should not 35% 28% 20%
be drafted.

Women should be drafted, but 26 34 28
not eligible for combat roles.

Women should be drafted and 25 27 43
eligible for combat roles.

Not sure 14 11 9
___ ___ ___
100% 100% 100%
(N) (506) (307) (147)

Total N=960

Hispanic Black White Other

Women should not 46% 34% 24% 29%
be drafted.

Women should be drafted, but 22 30 28 26
not eligible for combat roles.

Women should be drafted and 24 23 39 27
eligible for combat roles.

Not sure 8 13 9 18
___ ___ ___ ___
100% 100% 100% 100%
(N) (41) (477) (351) (66)

Total N=935

Enlisted NCOs Officers

Yes 31% 36% 52%

No 54 45 34

Not Sure 15 19 14
___ ___ ___
100% 100% 100%
(N) (512) (309) (149)

Total N=970

Hispanic Black White Other

Yes 34% 31% 46% 31%

No 56 52 40 44

Not Sure 10 17 14 25
___ ___ ___ ___
100% 100% 100% 100%
(N) (41) (480) (356) (68)

Total N=947
 

Enlisted NCOs Officers

Strongly agree or agree 50% 52% 50%

Strongly disagree or disagree 35 43 39

Not sure 16 5 11
___ ___ ___
100% 100% 100%
(N) (515) (311) (150)

Total N=976

Enlisted NCOs Officers

Strongly agree or agree 38% 49% 61%

Strongly disagree or disagree 38 34 35

Not sure 25 17 4
___ ___ ___
100% 100% 100%
(N) (515) (308) (149)

Total N=972

Enlisted NCOs Officers

Should be the same 13% 14% 24%

Should be different 83 85 72

Not sure 5 2 4
___ ___ ___
100% 100% 100%
(N) (512) (310) (149)

Total N = 971

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