To the website of Rose Weitz —professor, author, and researcher at Arizona State University—and to the Women’s Reentry to Civilian Life Research Project. I’ve put together this web site primarily to inform women who’ve served in the military about this project and to provide a brief introduction to me and my work in general. (You can find out more about my professional work, including a complete list of publications, by going to ASU’s directory, typing my name in the search box, and then clicking on my name.)
As a university professor, both research and teaching are central to my work. I’ve been passionately committed to research and teaching on women’s lives since my undergraduate days. From the start, I have focused on how women strive to take charge of their lives and their identities in the face of various challenges, especially those related to health, sexuality, and the body. Among other projects, I’ve written books on how midwives have fought for a place in the health care system, how both women and men grapple with an AIDS diagnosis, and how and why women sometimes use their hairstyles to “tell the world” who they are. (Click on the links for a little more about me or my publications.)
For the last few years, I’ve been following news stories about servicemembers’ transition from military to civilian life after serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. I soon realized, however, that women’s voices were rarely included in these stories. Researchers, too, have largely ignored women who have served in the military (although a few good books on women veterans and service members are available).
Women play a crucial part in our Armed Forces, and their stories deserve to be told. My goal is to document both the challenges women face as they transition to civilian life and the strengths they bring to those challenges. There are many important questions that need to be studied, including how motherhood — or childlessness — affects women’s reentry, whether the long-term effects of combat differ for men and women, and why both homelessness and employment are more common among women veterans than among male veterans.
I am now interviewing women from any military branch (including Guard and Reserve) who deployed after 9/11, are under age 45, and are NOT currently Active Duty. For practical reasons, I’m focusing for now on those who live inTucson, Flagstaff, or the Phoenix metro area.
Doing research is part of my job as a professor, but I am free to choose my own topics. I chose this one because I think women who have served our country receive far too little attention and deserve to be heard. I believe I can be most useful by doing what I do best: listening carefully to individuals’ stories and then pulling those stories together into a bigger picture for a wider audience.
For more information on the interviews, including how to volunteer, click here. And please feel free to spread the word!