Faithful and fearless

Drawing on interviews with over a hundred women in the military and the church - including senior officers, combat pilots, lay activists, and nuns - this book gives voice to the struggles and vision of these women as they have moved protest into the mainstream. Katzenstein shows why the military and the church, similarly hierarchical and insistent on obedience, have come to harbor deeply different forms of protest. She demonstrates that women in the military have turned to the courts and Congress, whereas feminists in the church have used "discursive" protests - writing, organizing workshops and conferences - to rethink in radical ways the meanings of faith and justice. These different strategies, she argues, reflect how the law regulates the military but leaves the church alone.