OMG the Women are Coming! (Updated)
Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifted the 1994 ban on women serving in combat positions! Yay! Right after that many military spouses and some service members crazy wingnuts began clutching their pearls and crying foul for some of the most idiotic reasons I have ever heard, such as:
1) “Women won’t be able to keep clean in the field without a shower.” To this, almost every female scientist, certainly every one that has done an 8-12 week field camp without a shower, laughed hysterically. That’s right, we civilian scientists routinely go without showering for long periods of time in the field and we don’t find ourselves to be stronger than female service members, so this is a non-issue.
2) Related to #1 above, “What about getting your period in the field.” As stated above, you just deal. I have had to backpack my blood soaked tampons with me through the Alaskan Wilderness and I am still alive to tell the tale. This is a non-issue.
3) “Men and women will have to do their business together….eeewww.” As stated above, been there, done that at a religious school where women and men being naked together was a serious deal. We were on a playa with no bushes or topography for miles, I asked the guys to turn around for a sec so I could do my thing, there in the dirt. Was no problem, so let’s move on.
4) “Women are not as strong as men.” Correction, some women are not as strong as men and those women won’t make it through the training to get into the toughest jobs, making this a non-issue. But I know you think women are weak creatures, so I will refer you to a woman I work with now, who while PREGNANT was doing field work with me on a volcano in Costa Rica. She could out hike even the men in our group (who were all in great shape themselves), leaving them panting along the trail. So if a pregnant woman can lap a man with a full pack of gear on the side of a volcano, I am pretty sure we can have faith in our sisters in arms.
5) Which brings us to: OMG, Pregnancy: “The women will just get pregnant to get out of deployment, which will weaken mission readiness and…” Maybe it is just because my husband has been in the service for eternity and a half, in two different branches, maybe it’s because I have been a milspouse for a long time now, but I find this one hard to believe. I have only ever met one woman who got pregnant before a deployment. My husband has met 2, in his whole career both officer and enlisted. In neither of the cases mentioned was it a nefarious plot to destroy unit readiness and secure an easy job. Believe it or not most women who want to be in the military, just like most women who want to be scientists or engineers, choose their jobs because they love their jobs…LOVE THEM. It is what they are passionate about and what they dream about. They want to do their job and they want to be the best at it, for the same reasons men do. The women who are going to pursue the training and be successful at it and the combat jobs it qualifies them for are fierce women who are going after their jobs because they love them. They are not the kind of people who are going to get pregnant to get out of deployment, assuming those people actually exist (I haven’t ever observed them and neither has my service member). So get a grip.
And honestly, it’s called an IUD, Depo, or any of the hundred other birth control items you can use that make sure you don’t even have a period, let alone that you are able to get pregnant.
6) Oh, let’s not forget: Protection. According to some military spouses, women have an innate desire to protect women. This will weaken mission readiness because they will be more worried about their female comrades being blown to bits. This seems like arm chair quarterbacking to me. Believe it or not, when you are getting shot at (spoiler alert I have been), you are not thinking. Your body and brain are completely tied up with how you are responding to the danger. Get low. Get to a “safer” position. Deal with the threat. Is everyone okay? You aren’t thinking about a penis or vagina at all.
Plus women have been in combat for a while now. Grown men actually have the capability of treating all of their compatriots as equals, stop selling them short by saying they don’t.
7) Finally: SEX. Rather than worrying about whether these women are going to get their claws into your infantryman, how about we address RAPE? It is entirely possible that women in these positions may be raped by rapists who are in the military. Should this bar them from these positions? Only if you think rapists belong anywhere in the military. I don’t. But I do think that if 30% of all senior officer firings are due to sexual misconduct issues, including RAPE, then we need to open up jobs that will allow women to get into senior leadership positions where they can change the culture. Because it is better for male and female rape victims in the military if sexual misconduct, including rape, is seen for what it is and stopped. We have observed these shifts in culture begin to take hold as women moved up though the power structures in many different communities.
Ladies and gentlemen, let go of your pearls. I assure you that just as people of color and gays were and are integrated into the military, the flag still flies high over the Nation today. After all, women have been in combat for a long time and now they are finally going to get recognition for the things they’ve been already doing. It’s not the end of the world. It’s a good thing.
This will actually probably improve the military, because women who wouldn’t join an organization that banned them from full participation will probably join now. God knows, I told the recruiter that called me that I wouldn’t join an organization that treated me as a second class citizen and the military’s policies toward women gave me pause about dating my husband. I was worried he was a misogynist prick like the men and women who are against hiring the best person regardless of gender for the job. Thankfully, he turned out to be otherwise.
Oh and just remember, we’re not breaking new ground here: Australia, Canada, Ceylon, Israel, New Zealand, and Norway all allow women in combat. And they’re still around too. I think we will be okay.
And since someone made the comment to me, I will add this: If married service members are f*cking someone other than their spouse, it’s ADULTERY. There are already rules on the books to address this issue. They would just need to be enforced. What a shocking concept!
*slow clap*
It really disturbs me how many women are saying shit like this. Though also fucking ridonkulous, it’s one thing for men to infantilize and discount women. It’s worse when it’s friendly fire.
Exactly! Besides how do they think women survived back during the Pleistocene when there were no tampons, toilets, showers, etc. Humans wouldn’t be here now if a woman couldn’t defend themselves.
No easy answer — the feminist in most of us wants to say, “yippee” but the realist is some of us says “no go” We leave out a big part of the equation — cultural training. Even if the physical hurdle is overcome, men and women have been trained differently. It happens in corporate america every day, with male words and behavior being the weapons. It’s slowly but surely changing, but do we really want put women in an internally and externally dangerous environment? Unfortunately, green on blue attacks will pale in comparison while the rape and assault statistics get swept under the diversity carpet.
I think I already addressed this. The women applying for these jobs are going to be fierce inside and out. They are going to know what they are up against, the same way I knew what I was up against when I have taken jobs at companies where no woman had ever held that job before me. I deal with sexism every day in a profession where at the highest levels, there are about 5% women. You have to be harder than the hardest person swinging at you. You have to know that they are coming for your head every day and be okay with fighting every one you have to in order to stay on top.
As for rape, well when I was a kid Tailhook was the norm and it isn’t now. It will take time to change the culture, but it will be changed. Trust me, the women applying for these jobs know that rape will be used as a weapon against them by rapists. But not all men are rapists and to bar women from a job because some men are rapists is 1) giving rapists a pass and 2) suggesting that the natural inclination of all men is to abuse women. I don’t believe that.
And guess what, the best way to change our cultural beliefs about women is to have women be seen doing things equal to or better than men. These women will have no problem challenging the stereotype of what a combat soldier looks like, because honestly they’ve been taking fire for over a decade (Tammy Duckworth, anyone?). Now, they’ll get credit for the place they’ve already earned.
Also, since I know men in the military who have been raped, I would argue that your argument suggests we should also exclude men from the military to prevent them from being raped.
And then there you go…we have no military
No suggestion of the sort. It is a combination of all abuse — verbal, subtle (bad reviews) and physical I was referring to. My hope is that the decision-making process is carefully thought out. Everyone who is physically capable should, of course, be encouraged. But what should also be considered in the process is the ability of the individual to operate culturally within the unit assigned. We can dismiss it all we want, but men and women, even in the armed services and even after hours of diversity training, communicate differently and process differently. The workplace can attempt to dismiss 20 years of cultural training within the family and societal units but it cannot be erased. The majority of men do not want to receive or give orders to females in any workplace; they will only do so if part of the job description and mission. However, in the case of the armed services there is the real potential of a breakdown in morale if the unit leader and fellow soldiers are not 100% comfortable with females, thereby sacrificing the mission and the mental and physical safety of the some of its members. Not every job is meant for everyone — man or woman.
I did not suggest every woman would be a good fit for a combat unit, just as not every man is.
However, I think you are arguing a red herring. Sure, there is lots of socialization issues in this world and men and women in some families are definitely socialized to specific gender norms. Certainly I was. But then look how I turned out. I rejected all of it, much to my family’s horror.
However, men can take orders from women. I see it every day in my profession. Hell, the head of the company I will be interning for is a female and let me tell you, in my world women on top is still a rare thing. But it happens and men deal with it.
The really wonderful thing here is that women have already been leading men for a while in the military. There are female generals and admirals. I’ve met them and men follow them.
The military has the capability to take this to the next level from basic training onward. They break you down and reassemble you into what they want. Orders are orders and you follow them or people die. It is that simple. Any man who refuses to follow orders because they are given by a female can be dealt with via the UCMJ. I am pretty certain most men aren’t willing to risk a dishonorable discharge to prove a point. And those who are, well, I’ll pop popcorn and watch them go down in flames.
Believe it or not, men can pull up their big girl panties and deal if we ask them to do so. I certainly have lead men in hazmat situations and everyone did their jobs and got home to their families safely. Don’t sell men short by suggesting they are incapable of thinking beyond their penises. It’s an insult to my spouse who has had several female bosses over the course of his military career.