Women, Combat, and the Gender Line

Women were the invisible combatants of World War II. Hundreds of thousands fought—not as partisans or guerrillas but as regular soldiers in uniform. They served on both sides and every front. German women soldiers helped inflict casualties on American and British forces, and in turn they were killed, wounded, or captured. Likewise, Soviet and British women fought bravely. American women, however, did not fight. The questions are: Why not? And what does that fact tell us about gender roles in America?