Commentary: Everyday Essentialism and Women’s Experiences in Armed Forces

This commentary is a response to two articles published on the 2025 OnlineFirst pages of Armed Forces & Society : “Women in the Military: Navigating Through Female Life Stages and Military Career by ‘Acting Normally’” by Nadia Diacone, Elena Bendien, Eva van Baarle, and Petra Verdonk; and “When Professionalism Is Not Enough: On Public Discourse Regarding Women’s Combat Service in Israel—the Case of Iron Swords (2023–2025)” by Elisheva Rosman and Itamar Rickover. The two articles make important points about the persistence of everyday essentialist gender stereotypes that affect the culture of military organizations, the experiences of female military personnel, and public attitudes toward women in state armed forces. We argue that the two articles also contain findings which challenge the literature on war as a catalyst for women’s empowerment, and that academic and policy-making communities should pay closer attention to these findings that make us question the transformative potential of war.