From: Julie Wright <julie@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Military Quote
Date: 27 Sep 1992 01:48:06 GMT
Organization: The Cultural Elite
Distribution: world
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cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>blchapma@eos.ncsu.edu (BEKKI LYN) writes:
>>dan@cubmol.bio.columbia.EDU (Daniel Zabetakis) writes:

Note: I've edited a lot of stuff out to shorten the message, but I tried
to preserve enough so that no one is quoted out of context.

>>> If you ask the average opponent of WIM (women in the military), they will
>>> say that they are opposed to it because they want to protect women from
>>> being killed/captured/raped.

>[...]  I'm sorry, I just think that there isn't any male drive to
>protect women.  

I think most decent *people* would have a drive to protect each other, and
I certainly would hope men would be disturbed by the idea of a female soldier
being raped and would want to protect her from it.  Women would
feel the same way about male soldiers being raped or tortured.  (I know
you meant you didn't think men had any kind of built-in drive to protect
women any more than they'd protect men, and I agree with that.)  I
actually think the traditional attitude falls into the category of male 
soldiers' humanity being devalued as much as into the category of being 
patronizing to women. 

[more on why "traditional" men might want to keep women out of the military]
>Personally, I think it has more than a little to do with the major
>western religions all worshipping as nice little good boy son who is
>tortured to death by the decree of his father -- who is unable to
>forgive the world until his only son is tortured to death.  He pointed
>his finger, and meek little good boy Jesus went and kacked.  (Sorry for
>seriously offending anyone; I just think that this death and martyrdom
>kick that western religion gets off on is really damaging to young
>men.)
I'm an atheist and have no emotional attachment to Christianity or any
other religion, but even I cringe reading this.  I'm not even sure
I understand the point you're making, but it looks to me like you're
saying Western religions (btw, doesn't Judaism count as a major Western
religion? not sure of your definition) revolve around a concept of
male virtue which includes sacrificing one's life to other people's
violence.  What does that have to do with men stopping women from doing
the same thing, even if I agreed with this premise?  
I think you could have phrased your argument a lot better, to say the
least.

>As for shattering ego -- I remember someone named Goldberg -- Herb maybe
>-- who said that it was in vogue to ask men to FEEL, but this was like
>taunting a crippled man to run.  So much that men ARE is invested in
>that ego, in the things like killing and flying airplanes that they then
>tell themselves women can't do because we're women.  When we prove
>ourselves able to do them, their achievement of "manhood" seems to them
>to be a sham.  It's a pretty hollow manhood that has to rely on keeping
>someone in artificial weakness to be achieved.

I think you have a real point here (except I would have said "SOME men").  
I would extend this argument to other
roles, like earning money, or many academic pursuits.  However, I think
it would be misleading to say that defining one's *identity* in terms of 
any of these pursuits is necessarily equivalent to defining one's *manhood*
in terms of those pursuits.  Many men are proud of flying airplanes because
it takes work, talent, and bravery.  Women are proud of flying for the
same reasons.  The main problem comes if  we link our identity too closely
with our gender, instead of being proud of our virtues because we admire
those traits.  I don't link my pride in knowing how to cook to being
female, and many men don't link their pride in shooting well or flying
airplanes to their gender, either, even if they do link their pride in 
themselves to those activities.

>Please note that I'm not running down manhood per se, just the
>societally defined version of it that keeps US in subjection, and men
>killing themselves to achieve it.  Sounds to ME like no one wins in THIS
>system. 
Do you really want to run down the entire societally defined version of
manhood, though?  I agree that many of those traits are imposed on many
individual men, and I have many problems with some of those social pressures,
but don't you think there are virtues in there, too?  If you do, it
certainly doesn't come across to me in your posts.

>>[...] If those "traditional males"
>>are so worried about a woman being an incapable warrior or whatever, then
>>they could perhaps provide some sort of test.  Whoever passes is in.
>They have a test now -- it's called "do you have a penis?"
I hope you really are just talking about some subset of men in the military,
and I agree there are hopeless sexists there.  But first of all, do you
really think a penis is the only qualification these men are looking
for?  Give me a break.  Second, I really feel that the whole tone of this
discussion is "military=traditional male identity=sexist and anti-woman".
I believe 15% of the U.S. military is female now.  A lot of their
identity now comes from their role as soldiers, sailors, or whatever.
When you talk about the military as if they weren't there, *you're* the
one denying their identity.  The military *is* these women, probably at
least as much as it is the totally sexist men.  You don't have to want
to be a soldier yourself -- I don't either -- but are you really fighting
for them by denigrating what they do and the careers and services they
have chosen?  Looks to me like you're more interested in attacking the
military than promoting equality for the women in the services.  I don't
have a problem so much with you're attacking the military, if that's
how you feel, but I feel like you're being disingenuous to imply that
your goal is to get equal treatment for women there.  Would you, personally,
be happy if women now signed up in droves for the Army, etc. and advanced
rapidly through the ranks?  Or would you think they were being conned
and duped, if they chose those careers?

>Besides, if this is how they prove "manhood," then having a woman do it
>just as well, as I said above, would cause them to have to redefine
>manhood, which is a possibly painful and revelatory task.  They don't
>want to do it. 
Again, in the case of some men, I think this is a really good point.  I
would expect the best remedy would be to point out that they can still
keep their idea of what traits they want to possess, but those traits
could be uncoupled from the concept of manhood.  (Perhaps "adulthood", though.)

>>Of course, I don't see them doing this any time soon because then it
>>would be too easy for too many of the wrong people to fail (i.e. too many
>>males), and we certainly wouldn't want that to happen, eh?
This doesn't seem consistent.  I believe sexist men think of women as
incapable and incompetent at certain things, not that they're certain
we'll succeed if we're allowed, so we must be banned.

>>>I may be wrong, but I am under the impression that the Air Force is the
>>>more progressive of the forces as far as WIM is concerned. I think they were
>>>the first (only?) service to really study women and gays in terms of
>>>quality service.
>>We'll just have to see what happens.  I'd like to see all military 
>>personnel all over the world out of a job, and into another that's
>>more productive for our societies, but since I don't see that happening
>>in the near future, I can only hope that we can at least educate
>>some of these "traditional males" into treating us women with a little
>>more respect for our capabilities.
>[Janis' stuff about Tailhook, which is a Navy scandal]
>If the Air Force is the most progressive, then we're in trouble.  Some
>slave owners were also progressive in not beating their property as
>often or as hard, or not raping the women as much, or not selling off
>people separate from their families unless they could read, but I don't
>think that's really cause for celebration.

Hey, my sister's an NCO in the Air Force (some kind of sergeant, but I'm 
not good at ranks... :) ), and from what I've heard from her, your
comments are grossly unfair.  I sure wouldn't compare her to a slave,
even to make an exaggerated point.  She's encountered quite a few sexist men,
but she's been given more credit for intelligence, and she's been more
motivated and inspired, and more respected generally, than she ever
was in school.  I get the distinct impression that the Air Force is
adjusting rapidly to women in its ranks, a lot more rapidly than academic
science, which is what I've seen firsthand.  I also get the distinct
impression my sister would feel a lot more welcome and respected in her 
squadron than she would in this newsgroup this week.  The Air Force
wouldn't be my personal cup of tea, either, but if you equate military
bashing with sexist-men bashing, the implication to me is that she's
not a Real Woman.  I don't see much real support for women in the military
in here, just attacks on the screwed up men who are there.

By the way, keep in mind that a lot of people have lost their jobs over
the Navy's Tailhook scandal.  I fully agree that sexist men in the military
who abuse their power should be brought to light and punished.  But do
you have any actual facts about sexism in the Air Force to back up your
implications?  I fully expect that there's sexism there, but is it really
worse than in the rest of society?  I wonder.  I'm not claiming to know.
If you found out that they were less sexist than, say, any industry
in this country, would you give them any credit at all, or would you not
think there was any "cause for celebration" until every last person was
free of prejudice?
    
>Janis C.

--- Julie



-- 
| "Admit it, Syl.  You need us.  Can you imagine a world without men?" |
| "No crime, and lots of happy, fat women."                            |
|   				--- from "Sylvia," by Nicole Hollander |



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