Fighting Stereotypes: Public Discourse About Women in Combat

Focusing on the dangers of war, sex–gender segregation and inequality in the United States military, this study examines reader responses to opinion editorials about women in combat. Comments in favor of women’s ground combat exclusion use a logic of averages to promote essentialist thinking about men and women. Conversely, comments in favor of integration advance a view of sex–gender diversity that places men and women along a continuum with overlapping qualities. [ResearchGate]