This book analyzes women's military service in the U.S. Explosive Ordnance Disposal community. During the Global War on Terrorism, the changing contexts of war brought the community to the forefront of combat preceding the 2016 policy repeal restricting women's service in combat, which positioned these women at a poignant moment in history. Through a rhetorical framework, the author analyzes the disparities between policy discourse and the lived experiences of individuals who these policies seek to regulate. Their positioning also sheds light on the challenges twenty-first century scholars face in analyzing shifting gender roles in the workplace with policies advocating for gender equality, which often buries continued gendered ideologies and discourse. This book takes a mixed methods approach of qualitative and quantitative data from surveys, available government documents, and other cultural artifacts to create a more triangulated analysis. While this book is rooted in rhetorical, and feminist rhetorical, analyses, its dynamic nature demands using an interdisciplinary approach that pulls from discourse analysis, political, historical, and military scholarship, and other humanities-based feminist scholarship.
