H eather M arie S tur . Beyond Combat

In contrast to much of the U.S. scholarship on the Vietnam War, which centers on policymaking, combat, and antiwar protests, Beyond Combat draws attention to U.S. women and gender ideologies in wartime Vietnam. As many as 66,000 U.S. women served in Vietnam in military and civilian capacities. Focusing on the American women who went to Vietnam under the auspices of the Red Cross Supplemental Recreational Activities Overseas (SRAO) program and on nurses and Women's Army Corps (WAC) personnel, Heather Marie Stur finds that U.S. women in Vietnam were often valued by the military as much for their femininity as for their professional competence. Indeed, the military welcomed SRAO women, commonly known as “donut dollies” because of their girl-next-door appeal. Nurses formed the largest group of U.S. military women who served in Vietnam, followed by WAC members. In addition to helping train South Vietnam's Women's Armed Forces Corps, WAC personnel worked as stenographers, typists, clerks, air traffic controllers, and as other combat support providers. Because the ratio of support to combat troops ranged from 5:1 to 10:1 during the war, their work experiences resembled, to some extent, those of many male servicemen. But gendered expectations of proper femininity—which led, among other things, to mandatory pantyhose wearing, despite the tropical heat—and the pervasiveness of sexual harassment contributed to some distinctive labor conditions.

Appeal · Femininity · Girl · Harassment · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · Vietnam War · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Gender Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Psychology · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies