Synopsis
Crossed Currents is the first history of women in the U.S. Navy. Since the World War I service of Yeoman (F) Loretta Perfectus Walsh - the first U.S. servicewoman not a nurse - through the Gulf War and the recent Tailhook scandal, women have struggled for acceptance within the U.S. Navy. This book tells a fascinating story of two currents crossing and recrossing, sometimes conflicting, sometimes converging. One current is the Navy's attempt to include women gradually without losing its traditional values. The other is that of women challenging the Navy's assumptions, their aspirations rising as their opportunities widen. And as any sailor knows, where currents cross the waters are troubled. Jean Ebbert and Marie-Beth Hall have written a comprehensive and inspiring history that covers Tailhook in depth and shows why it was to be expected. Crossed Currents will make waves.
Reviews
Solidly researched and engagingly written, this study explores how the U.S. Navy, reluctantly for the most part, opened its ranks to women, and how, once admitted, women have struggled to gain acceptance. Though thousands of women performed useful volunteer service in both world wars, not until 1948 were they sworn into the regular Navy. Then, in 1972, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, chief of naval operations, launched initiatives that made available numerous ratings, programs and assignments from which women had previously been excluded. Ebbert and Hall discuss the status of such controversial issues as fraternization, sexual harassment, lesbianism and the question of allowing women aboard combat ships. Readers will find here an objective review of the well-publicized, traumatic 1991 Tailhook Convention of naval carrier pilots in Las Vegas at which rowdiness became a form of rape. Though the struggle for parity is still far from won, the authors conclude that the Gulf War demonstrated that the Navy has integrated women extensively and that the trend promises to continue. Ebbert is a former Navy lieutenant married to a retired Navy captain; Hall is the wife of a retired Navy captain and the mother of two naval officer sons. Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From their years of personal involvement in the navy as well as from skillful interpretation of primary sources, Ebbert and Hall have produced the definitive history of women in the U.S. Navy. The facts speak for themselves in this carefully documented work, which includes enough anecdotal material to keep the narrative lively. This is a model study of how both navy women and the institution itself struggled (and continues to struggle) to define women's utility, rights, and obligations within a patriarchal institution. An essential purchase for military and women's history collectons, this book is also important for the study of many issues prominent in today's news--sexual harassment, comparable worth, women in combat, and the impact of parents' work on family life.
- Linda Carlisle, Lovejoy Lib., Southern Ill. Univ., Edwardsville
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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