"You Got Beat by a Girl!": Doubt and Double Standards in the Military

• In Event: Peace, War, and Social Conflict Panel Session: Gender, Militaries, and Conflict

Abstract

The Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) cohort includes the largest cohort of women to serve in US history, with increased integration across occupations, including combat roles (Kehrt 2025; USO 2023; Women’s Veteran Alliance 2025). The military has moved to a more inclusive posture since 9/11 including changes to gendered uniforms, gender neutral adjustments to physical fitness tests, acceptance into special forces, and jumping from 14% in 2005 to 20% women in the military as of 2022 (Women’s Veteran Alliance 2025; Kehrt 2025). Despite this shift, sociological research has only recently explored women’s experiences regarding their active and post-service reflections on institutional belonging and identity (Bonnes 2025, 2019; Sasson-Levy 2003). This chapter adds to the growing discussion drawing on ten in-depth semi-structured interviews with military veterans identifying as women from the OIF/OEF cohort. I explore how they navigated life within a military that posits itself as a meritorious equitable institution. Women have made incredible gains as far as occupations and inclusion; however, the institution maintains a culture that subtly ‘others’ women through microaggression. The women in this study reflect both the gains made for and by women in the military, but also still contend with gendered discrimination in both explicit and implicit forms, and internalized misogyny.

Author

• April Kathryn Koeberle, University of Massachusetts-Boston