Tanya L. Roth is a historian and teacher whose new book, Her Cold War: Women in the U.S. Military, 1945-1980, details the experiences of American women after the 1948 Women’s Armed Services Integration Act began a new era in the history of military service. In this conversation, Roth explains how, in the decades since World War II, the U.S. military became a central battleground in the fight for gender equality, as women challenged (and ultimately overturned) their classification as “noncombatants” and continue to reshape the structure and ideology of an institution that, for better or worse, serves as a critical engine of social engineering.

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