Women make up more than 15 percent of the US armed forces, on active duty and in the reserves and National Guard. They have occupied the office of secretary of state and national security adviser in Democratic and Republican administrations. They have served in Iraq and Afghanistan as heroes and victims, sometimes at the same time, as in the case of Jessica Lynch. At Abu Ghraib prison women held positions ranging from prison commandant, General Janis Karpinski, to rank-and-file torturer, Lynndie England, and as prominent scapegoats for the crimes committed there and by their superiors. From the Tailhook scandal to “don't ask, don't tell,” one can hardly avoid the issue of gender and war, and that is only in the US military. Outside the United States, women have played key roles as guerrilla fighters, as peace activists, peacekeepers, mediators, and judges presiding over international tribunals for bringing war criminals to justice. As I put the finishing touches to this book, the headlines report on the situation in the Russian North Caucasus, where human rights abuses connected to the violence in Chechnya have given rise to the phenomenon of female suicide bombers. It is no wonder that the topic of gender and war has increasingly attracted the attention of not only feminist scholars, who have long been interested in it, but a broad range of academics and journalists.

The first course I taught on gender was an undergraduate seminar at the University of Michigan in the early 1990s called “Women under Socialism.