Should women be soldiers or pacifists?

Even with the upsurge of feminist scholarship in the last 25 years relatively little attention has been given to war's impact on women. Some feminist historians and sociologists have nevertheless contributed some important research. Cynthia Enloe, in particular, explores the roles the military assigns to women in her books, beginning with Does Khaki Become You? in 1983. Others such as Sara Ruddick and Jean Bethke Elshtain have examined the actual theme of women and war. Nevertheless, debates on the theme have largely stalled around the starkly opposed views among Western feminist activists about women's future roles within wars. Liberal feminists promote women's equal right to become front line soldiers, while many women who flocked to peace movements in the 1980s view war as a masculine enterprise, and urge women to reject war and work for peace. So which side is right? Should women press for full equality in the armed services or should they campaign against militarism? Unfortunately, feminist theory thus far cannot, for several reasons, satisfactorily answer these questions. Rather, women must make political judgments within the context of fundamental debates about war and peace, and not merely within the context of feminist goals.