Hidden Warriors (Servicewomen on the Front Line of Britain's Counterinsurgencies)

In 2018, all British military roles opened to women, but it is a myth to say that women were only then allowed to serve in ‘front line combat’. Examining seventy years of British counterinsurgency, from Malaya to Northern Ireland and then Afghanistan, Hannah West illustrates that women were there too. And yet their stories have been marginalised as the British Army has exerted power over the story told about women’s war labour.
Based on semi-structured interviews and archival records, this critical feminist history examines how the British Army enters into a ‘bargain’ with servicewomen. Servicewomen are subsequently controlled by co-option, whilst being permitted some agency but nonetheless repeatedly subjected to unnecessary risk. Hannah West demonstrates that women’s voices, as subjugated and situated knowledges, can be used to deconstruct gendered knowledge systems and bring about change.