I am often asked to convey what I perceive to be the experiences of women in the military - something I have been reticent to do largely because it has felt too personal to process, much less articulate. Personal is scary, scary because it is Vulnerability. Vulnerability can be a beautiful thing. So perhaps personal can be too. Articulating it? The following post is comprised of excerpts from a letter I wrote to a gathering of gender scholars on August 21, 2015 about women in Ranger School.
Although my purpose in writing the letter was to discuss the experiences of women in the military, it would be a mistake to reduce what I've shared above to a commentary about good vs. bad people, or to isolate it to the military. The military is an institution, comprised not of monolithic things called soldiers, but rather, of a diversity of human beings. Throughout my experiences in the military, I have worked with some of the most intelligent, kind, hilarious, and deeply conscientious people I have known. I have also worked with people who were the polar opposite of those adjectives. But like me, every single one of them, positive or negative adjectives notwithstanding, has been complicit in the devaluation of women, either actively, complaisantly, or through their silence. The same is true for members of every other institution in which I've been a member: family, church, school, sports, corporate America, academia, etc.
I grew up believing, on some level, that Sluts were actually promiscuous; Bitches were actually mean; Dykes actually hated men - and that being a promiscuous, mean, or man-hating woman was worthy of derision, despite the fact that being a promiscuous, mean, or man-hating man was worthy of praise. What then followed from those assumptions was: If you don't want to be called a Slut, close your damn legs! If you don't want to be called a Bitch, talk less and try smiling a little! If you don't want to be called a Dyke, maybe try wearing a dress and some make-up! Inherent in those identities, you see, are some powerful effects. They make us feel entitled to police a woman's conduct, her sensuality, her intelligence, her emotions, her disposition, her overall presentation of self. They give us the power to too easily project "truths" about a woman's behavior and identity that are divorced from the Truths that actually matter about who she fundamentally is as a human being. When you think of just one woman whom you care about deeply, whose heart you've felt, whose soul you know, that anyone could tag her with a Slut, Dyke, or Bitch label feels like insanity. Nevertheless, there is at least one other person in this world who has, at a point in time, declared as their "truth" that she is unquestionably one of those. As long as we allow the Slut, Dyke, Bitch identities to overshadow the humanity of one woman, they remain available to overshadow the humanity of any woman - our mothers, our wives, our sisters, our aunts, our youngest daughters - no matter how much she suppresses her sacred sensuality, how convincingly she smiles to mask her pain, or how unconditionally she Loves, even when it is not returned. So yes, my letter pertained to women in the military, but only because the military has a unique way of amplifying the norms and practices of the society it serves.
1 Comment
Deborah Lustig
4/21/2016 11:48:31 am
This is so beautifully written, and smart, and sad. And I am glad you see glimmers of hope and possibility. I appreciate you sharing your experiences and you making the links from those experiences to the broader structures of the institution and our society.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.