Nurses and marines epitomize accepted definitions of femininity and masculinity. Using ethnographic research and provocative in-depth interviews, Christine Williams argues that our popular stereotypes of individuals in nontraditional occupations - male nurses and female marines for example - are entirely unfounded. This new perspective helps to account for the stubborn resilience of occupational stratification in the face of affirmative action and other anti-discrimination policies.

"Williams [has] done us a service by urging us to look more closely at the complex forms of identity that emerge on both sides of the sexual divide and at the interplay between them." - Women's Review of Books

"A significant contribution to the burgeoning literature on occupational sex segregation."  - Social Forces