Abstract

Abstract:This article considers the ways in which military women’s rights campaigns have linked the “epidemic” of sexual violence to the struggle for military women’s equality. I analyze the approaches of the National Organization of Women (NOW) and Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) in order to trace a partial history of military women’s rights organizations built on liberal feminist ideals. I argue that understanding military sexual violence as a result of women’s inequality does nothing to explain sexual violence against men, as well as occludes global victims of US sexual and imperial violence. Ultimately, I argue that organizations such as SWAN are emblematic of a neoliberal feminist approach that problematically prioritizes women’s equal access to the military over a critique of US militarism.