Bitch, Slut, or Dyke?
by James G. Bruen,
Jr.
“The wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan,” the New York Times reported in a mid-August series
entitled
“Women at Arms,” have “cultivated a new generation of women with a warrior’s
ethos — and combat experience — that for millennia was almost exclusively the
preserve of men.”
“No one envisioned that
Afghanistan and Iraq would elevate the status of women in the armed forces,”
the newspaper says, but now “many experts … say it is only a matter of time
before regulations that have restricted women’s participation in war will be adjusted
to meet the reality forged over the last eight years. In gradually admitting
women to combat, the United States will be catching up to the rest of the
world.”
Women “have reshaped life on
bases across Iraq and Afghanistan,” the Times informs us, “without the disruption of discipline
and unit cohesion that some feared would unfold.” Why no disruption? How, after
millennia, has war so easily become the domain of women? “Opponents of
integrating women in combat zones long feared that sex would mean the end of
American military prowess. But now birth control is available … reflecting a
widely accepted reality that soldiers have sex at outposts across Iraq.”
Who knew the benefits
contraception would bring to the military? Now women can be trained to kill as
warriors while also helping to keep male combat troops content. The slogan of
the ‘60s has been altered by today’s military: Make Love at War.
Not all women in the
military embrace this dual meaning of the word “servicewoman”. “You’re a bitch,
a slut or a dyke — or you’re married, but even if you’re married, you’re still
probably one of the three,” Staff Sgt. Patricia Bradford, a psyops soldier,
told the newspaper. She characterized herself as a bitch, which, she indicated,
helped deflect slights and derision.
“At the outset of the war,
the introduction of women,” the Times says, “raised fears not just of
abuse or harassment, but also of sex and pregnancy. The worst of those fears,
officers say, have not materialized.”
What is “the worst of those
fears” that didn’t materialize? Abuse and harassment? Nope, that’s prevalent.
“Sexual harassment in a still-predominantly male institution remains a
problem,” the Times assures us. “So does sexual assault.” Thus, “as a
precaution, women are advised to travel in pairs, particularly in smaller
bases.” The women “face sexual discrimination and rape, and counselors and rape
kits are now common in war zones.”
Is increased sexual activity
the worst fear that didn’t materialize? Nope, sexual activity is rampant, too.
“In fact, sex in America’s war zones is fairly common, soldiers say, and has
not generally proved disruptive.” Ah, those contented military beneficiaries of
contraception. In fact, in April, “the latest iteration of General Order No. 1,
the rules governing the behavior of soldiers in Iraq broadly, quietly relaxed
the explicit prohibition on sex in a war zone, though it still bars sex with
Iraqis.” The rationale? “The chain of command already has to deal with enough,”
Capt. Margaret Taafe-McMenamy said. “They don’t really want to have to punish
soldiers for dating.” Dating? Is that what the military calls it?
So what’s left? What’s the
worst of those fears that were engendered by the introduction of women into the
war zone, the one that didn’t materialize? Pregnancy! The same fear that often
terrifies civilian society, as if pregnancy were a plague, not a blessing.
“There was a fear if we
integrate units, you will have a bunch of young people with raging hormones,
and it will end up in too many unwanted pregnancies, and it’s more trouble than
it’s worth,” said Peter Mansoor, a former battalion commander who was Gen.
David Petraeus’s executive officer. “With good leadership and mentorship, we
have been able to keep those problems to a minimum.” Good leadership and
mentorship? The elimination of the explicit ban on sexual activity coupled with
the widespread distribution of contraceptives demonstrates increased
permissiveness, not leadership and mentorship. Let the hormones rage sterilely!
Lest we not forget, these women are also warriors. “Iraq has advanced
the cause of full integration for women in the Army by leaps and bounds,” says
Mansoor. The Times proclaims: “women have repeatedly proved their mettle
in combat.” Thus, “as soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, women have
done nearly as much in battle as their male counterparts: patrolled streets
with machine guns, served as gunners on vehicles, disposed of explosives, and
driven trucks down bomb-ridden roads.” Moreover, “a small number of women have
even conducted raids, engaging the enemy directly in total disregard of
existing policies.”
These “gains” have, of
course, come at a cost. “As horrible as this war has been, I fully believe it
has given women so many opportunities in the military,” Linsay Rousseau
Burnett, who served as a communication specialist with a brigade combat team in
Iraq, told the Times. “Before, they didn’t have the option.” According
to the Times, sixty-six women have been killed in combat, and 620 have
been wounded, and “some women have come home bearing the mental and physical
scars of bombs and bullets, loss and killing.” They “appear to suffer rates of post-traumatic stress
disorder comparable to those of men.”
America appears to have
shrugged off these costs rather nonchalantly; after all, the country’s at war.
“Despite longstanding fears about how the public would react to women coming
home in coffins, Americans have responded to their deaths and injuries no
differently than to those of male casualties, analysts say.”
As an aside, the Times
mentions a couple of minor glitches. “In addition to the dangers, military life
is grueling in other ways, especially for mothers juggling parenting and the
demands of the military, which require long absences from home.” To say nothing
of the children who suddenly are motherless, either temporarily due to mom’s
deployment, or permanently due to her death.
So, why has America chosen
to expose its women to combat? Is combat just another job opportunity that
should be open to women? Why do we let mothers leave home, fight, die, and
render their children orphans? Are we really so callous as to lack outrage at
wives and mothers and daughters and sisters coming home in body bags or
crippled or maimed?
As a nation, do we want our
children raised by mothers with an overriding responsibility to go to war to
kill and be killed? Do we want our children raised by women who have killed?
Well, yes. American women have killed their children by the millions through abortion,
and those same women have raised countless other children.
America’s decision to permit
abortion also resolved the question of whether it would send its women to war.
If a woman has the right to kill her child in her womb, why shouldn’t she also
kill in combat? “Fifty-three percent of the respondents in a New York Times/CBS
News poll in July, said they would favor permitting women to ‘join combat
units, where they would be directly involved in the ground fighting.’”
Bitch, slut, or dyke? What a
choice America gives its women. This coarsening of America and its women has
come at great cost to the value we place on women and motherhood. The Times
nevertheless insists that, “Women in today’s military … preserve their femininity without
making much of it.” The lone example the Times cites of this preserved
femininity is perversely ironic: a pink feminine urinary director, described by
one woman warrior as “something that’s like a beer bong that I can hold in
place so I can pee standing up without pulling my pants down.”
Nor has the military’s eager
embrace of women escaped gays, who clamor for similar treatment. “They made it
work with women, which is more complicated in some ways, with sex-segregated
facilities and new physical training standards,” says David Stacy of the Human
Rights Campaign, a gay lobby. “If the military could make that work with good
discipline and order, certainly integrating open service of gay and lesbians is
within their capability.” After all, if pregnancy was the biggest fear when
women were introduced to war, why worry about gays? If sterile sex is the
desired norm, why exclude those who are openly gay?
James G. Bruen,
Jr. writes frequently for Culture Wars.
This article was published in the
October, 2009 issue of Culture
Wars.
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