Beyond Combat: Women and Gender in the Vietnam War Era

Beyond Combat investigates how the Vietnam War both reinforced and challenged the gender roles that were key components of American Cold War ideology. Refocusing attention onto women and gender paints a more complex and accurate picture of the war's far-reaching impact beyond the battlefields. Encounters between Americans and Vietnamese were shaped by a cluster of intertwined images used to make sense of and justify American intervention and use of force in Vietnam. These images included the girl next door, a wholesome reminder of why the United States was committed to defeating Communism, and the treacherous and mysterious 'dragon lady', who served as a metaphor for Vietnamese women and South Vietnam. Heather Stur also examines the ways in which ideas about masculinity shaped the American GI experience in Vietnam and, ultimately, how some American men and women returned from Vietnam to challenge homefront gender norms.

Heather Marie Stur is an Assistant Professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi. Dr. Stur has won fellowships from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, the Doris G. Quinn Foundation, the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, the University of Wisconsin, and Marquette University. She has published in several journals and collections, including The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics, and Culture; America and the Vietnam War: Re-examining the Culture and History of a Generation; Highway 61 Revisited: Bob Dylan from Minnesota to the World; Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era; and Milwaukee History.