Association of Libertarian Feminists

About ALF

Contact Info

Newsletter

Discussion Papers

Articles

Membership

What's New

Links

No. 75, Summer 2000

A Right to Bear Arms

by Courtney Couey

[Early this summer I had an e-mail correspondence with this very young woman, Courtney Couey, who wanted to know if she could sue the Army for gender discrimination because they wouldn't let her enlist in the infantry. She wrote as follows:

"I was in a program called Sage Walk and it is like the infantry but there are some differences. The Army people had me pick from a list of jobs...and the jobs that I picked I couldn't do because I'm a woman. I really don't feel like getting stuck at a job that I don't like. Especially a desk job.... I'm pretty serious about going into the Army, I want to be in the infantry, or being a Peacekeeper would be good, and if I need to take them to court about this whole issue I don't have the money. So my options are very limited since I'm a seventeen-year-old woman." When I told her that I didn't think current legislation allows her to sue on that basis, she sent me the following article. Ed.]

Should women be allowed to fight in combat? This issue has been going on for years. Some combat positions have been open to women such as fighter pilots, bombers, and so on. But women aren't allowed into a lot of combat positions such as armor crewman, cannon crewmember, cannon fire direction specialist, cavalry scout, combat engineer, early warning system operator, ground surveillance, Peacekeeper, infantryman, and so on. Which limits our leadership and participation roles and makes it harder for a woman to become a Joint Chief.

People say that if we let women fight it will endanger national security and we won't be trusted and all sorts of rumors like that. They probably said the exact same thing about blacks. When the bullets start flying it doesn't matter if your comrades are black, white, man, or woman. Gender discrimination is unconstitutional and violates our Civil Rights but the government and the Supreme Court continue to avoid these issues because they still look at us as housewives who are supposed to stay home and have children. They look at us like we are the weak ones, which isn't true because everyone has weaknesses and strengths. Today women have to work harder than men to get where they want to be in the military. No one wants to fight in wars but some people do it because they don't want to see their country to fall to ruins.

Other countries have women fighting in combat. In Vietnam the Viet Cong women had their own battalion. They were known for being very disciplined and ferocious. They would ambush our troops and kick our asses. In WWII the Russians had women fight on the front line. During the Civil War women would dress up as men and fight. Women have been actually fighting in wars for years whether men like it or not. Times are changing; they can't hold us back forever.

In the infantry the weight of the pack depends on the mission but when they train you the pack weighs about 50 pounds. I can carry that. I could probably carry more than that and I'm a pretty small person. Women who fly helicopters in combat have to pay the same price as infantry troops. They may not get out of there alive.

Women are known to be calm and nurturing. Because of that they don't think we can kill people but that isn't true. Anyone can kill. I've heard the argument about more men are on death row than women. That just proves that most of us have enough sense to keep ourselves out of trouble. Yes, men get angrier than women do but that just proves we have more self-control over our anger and actions than men do. Some people think we should be Peacekeepers because of our peaceful behavior. But you've got to remember not all women are peaceful. Just like men some women also don't have the emotional and physical strength to do these kinds of jobs, but we deserve a chance.

One woman who is a Desert Storm veteran says, "Women have been in combat since the Civil War. Women in every war have died, been taken prisoner, even raped. I was in Desert Storm, and I can tell you that there were some men who shouldn't be in combat! Some people say that men would risk their lives to save a woman's; I never saw that happen during Desert Storm. Our unit took everyone's ammo away from them after we had a man lock and load on us. They took away almost everyone's. I was allowed to have ammo because I, a woman, showed courage and strength. I was nicknamed Quiet Strength. And I'm proud that my NCOER for Desert Storm reflected the following: Highly motivated soldier, extremely dedicated, sets high standards, can be counted on to achieve results in emergency situations (wartime), display no outward signs of combat related stress under harsh conditions, exceeds peers in basic management skills (peers meaning men)."

When I see or hear the words "Be All You Can Be" or an advertisement from the Marines: "Every day you have to test yourself. If not, it's a wasted day"–these words to me mean be yourself, challenge yourself everyday, never give up, and be the best that you can be. To me it's false advertisement because they're preventing women from being themselves and being the best that they can be.

If it's unfair to deny women combat roles, then it's unfair to demand that only men be drafted. It's unfair that a man may be shot for desertion, but a woman may not choose a military career or a combat job.

Women may choose, but men must go, is not socially fair.

Is this what my future is going to be like? I can't accomplish my goals and dreams because I'm a woman? My dreams are taken away from me because I'm a woman? I can't choose a career that I'll be happy with because I'm a woman? I'm denied the right to be who I am because I'm a woman? I'm denied the right to "Be All That I Can Be" because I'm a woman? I have to live in a country that tells me I'm worthless because I'm a woman?

Someone lost a dream.

by Joan Kennedy Taylor

Book Review:

The Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America's Gender-Neutral Fighting Force Still Win Wars? by Stephanie Gutmann, 300 pp. New York: A Lisa Drew Book/Scribner. $25

Courtney Couey has shown us the negative impact that today's military recruitment messages can have on a young woman considering entering the Army. Has she misunderstood what she sees as a double message of invitation and unexplained exclusion? Not according to Stephanie Gutmann's hard-hitting and carefully researched book.

Before I read the book, I had assumed (in large part because of Carol Gilligan's review in The New York Times Book Review) that its message was that including women in the military was a disaster because women by nature could not be warriors. I am happy to report that it makes a different and much more persuasive point–that it is not the inclusion of women as such, but political correctness and a quota view of affirmative action that has made gender integration a military objective that has lowered readiness standards.

Political correctness takes an academic-speech-code view of self-esteem as entirely created by the opinions of others and therefore forbids any use of words that might wound in training recruits, both men and women. This changes the entire training scenario to one of helpfulness rather than rigorous challenge. But of particular detriment to women, political correctness sees all sexual references and sexual attraction as negative attacks on women; as "sexual harassment." This creates a schizophrenic view of military women especially, as on the one hand to be treated as interchangeable with men even if they have very different average physical capacities and fitness, and on the other, as delicate flowers who must be protected from any possible offense. Both are untrue attempts to fit all individuals into a standard template.

This view also encourages a utopian vision of a military force in which attraction between men and women can be completely expunged even when they live in isolated intimacy for long periods of time. I remember being amazed at this vision as expressed in the movie "G.I. Jane" a few years ago. The heroine, Demi Moore, not only refused to be judged by gender-norming standards of physical fitness–which seemed a good thing to me–but also insisted on sleeping in the men's barracks and even showering with the men–which seemed completely loony. Particularly since the movie not only showed no one harassing her under these circumstances (unrealistic, because her fellow trainees were negative about her presence as the first and only female Navy SEAL recruit), but even included a scene in which she had an important conversation with her sergeant in the communal shower. Now, reading Gutmann's book, I realize that this is the official vision put forward by the contemporary military, not just a loony film-maker's delusion.

In the 90s, says Gutmann, the policy toward women changed. Recruitment numbers became all-important as the directive was to create a military that "looked like America." In order to achieve massive increases in female recruits, a decision had to be made: "would they ask women to change themselves to fit into military culture and infrastructure, or would the institution change itself to ensure that women came and stayed? The significant fact about the nineties is that after decades of operating on the first premise, the institution became convinced it had to adopt the latter.... In decades past, without the hard-sell recruiting drive we have now, women joined the military because they loved its values, its traditions, its bloody triumphs, and the try-again quality it has always shown in defeat. They loved its guns and ships and tanks and men and its no-bullshit, shut-up-and-do-it culture. In general, they didn't join to be political symbols. Sometimes money was a factor, but amazingly often they really did join 'to serve [their] country.' There are still many women like that serving, and they are as appalled as the men by the changed values of what is often called the 'New Military.'" (14)

In order to accommodate women, the entire spirit of basic training was changed. Now trainees were, according to Gutmann, not told to shape up or get out, they were told to do "their best." Women were asked to report anything that made them "uncomfortable" in military life. Officers were put in the double bind of treating all recruits the same and also of protecting women. Standards of achievement were lowered for all recruits, but women had even lower standards to meet. Physically fit, highly motivated women were snapped up into officer training, leaving rank and file female recruits to flounder. Men, both officers and the ranks, began to resent a lot of what was going on.

"The really sad thing, of course," reports Gutmann, "is that it never had to be like this. If we had had sensible, plainspoken, morally courageous leaders, we could have had a force that continued to be appreciative of the women who qualify to serve, without alienating (and in too many cases actively persecuting) the men who make up–and will always make up--the majority of the armed forces. We could have opened new positions for women when it was sensible to do so and discouraged overt antifemale hostility (in the pockets where it can be found) without imposing a kind of totalitarian blackout on reasonable criticism of gender-integration policies, without practicing a kind of doublethink that said, 'Everything's great,' when often, sometimes right in front of a CO's eyes, it was not." (16)

There is disagreement among social scientists as to how many gender differences are culturally created and how many are "hard-wired." But leaving that aside, there are statistical physical differences between the sexes. "The average woman is about five inches shorter than the average man, she has 55 to 60 percent less upper body strength, a lower center of gravity, a higher fat-to-muscle ratio, lighter bones that are more subject to fracture, a heart that can't move oxygen to the muscles as fast as a man (i.e.. 20 percent less aerobic capacity), and a rather more complicated lower abdomen full of reproductive equipment." (247) Statistically, the menstrual cycle affects physical work performance.

These differences were generally known, but others were unexpected. Twelve percent of the women in parachute jump training, for instance, drop out because they suffer "exercise-induced urinary incontinence." (247). And, says Gutmann, "Who would have guessed, for example, when they imagined flanks and flanks of men and women marching together in lockstep that a significant number of women would develop urinary tract infections on long desert marches because they were embarrassed about taking a pee in view of their male comrades? Or that because many women were turning up pregnant while on deployment in third-world countries like Haiti and Somalia, someone would have to test routine inoculations to see if they would harm a fetus? Or that you'd have to adjust the thrust of ejector seat mechanisms so they didn't kill the lighter-bone female aviator as they punched her out of the aircraft?" (19-20)

Political correctness didn't help when it came to dealing with such differences. There was an attempt to develop a device to allow women to relieve themselves standing up, when "research showed...dehydration because they were reluctant to urinate in the field. (Some would not drink enough water so they wouldn't have to face the embarrassing problem.)" (248) But it was never deployed.

"A 1997 study reported that women had two–in one study, three–times the rate of overall injury and twice the incidence of stress fractures in military training environments." (248) But investigation of whether remedial training to increase fitness helped with this problem was abandoned in favor of attempting to make the tasks of all soldiers less onerous. A preliminary study indicated that female fitness could be increased with training. Female volunteers who had met enlistment physical standards all lost about 6 pounds of fat and gained 2 of muscle, increased their running speed by 33 percent and their chest circumferences an average of 12 percent, and the percentage of them who could lift 100 pounds went from 24 percent to 78 percent. (251-252) But such training was not instituted.

The services (all except for the Marines) are having such trouble meeting their enlistment quotas of men as well as women that they are lowering fitness standards and inducting both men and women into the ranks who are unfit and overweight. As a matter of fact, the all-male combat troops training at Fort Benning, Georgia, were doing very poorly in June 2000 on a series of formerly standard 1946 exercises that are being re-introduced "to remind service members of the need to stay in shape," reported The New York Times.

And political correctness again sweeps the issue of in-service pregnancy under the rug, although the Navy acknowledges that "roughly 10 percent" of women "will discover they are pregnant once deployed." (95) A number of units told to report for overseas duty in the Gulf were significantly under strength because pregnant soldiers were not sent, but the services insist that pregnancy can be dealt with as they have always dealt with medical emergencies like broken legs and burst appendixes.

Navy officers discipline sailors for "flirting," although no understandable definition is offered. One Captain decided that a 29 minute conversation between a man and a woman was okay, but 30 minutes was a reportable offense. To put the "problem" of sex in perspective, here's another statistic. "Sixty percent of the force is under thirty." (21) Gutmann saw the younger recruits taking a "high school" attitude toward sexual pairing off as no big deal, and spends some attention on documenting that the Tailhook scandal was an almost entirely consensual orgy that had become an underground tradition.

Still, she assumes that sex relations in the service are totally incompatible with the idea of a military fighting force. I am not so sure. It is perhaps instructive to think back to one of the best military machines of ancient times–Sparta. That was an army that made room for individual attachments and love affairs between soldiers: all male, in that case. But it didn't destroy military efficiency. Certainly, the way the services are treating sex today–by on the one hand turning a blind eye to what goes on and even encouraging it with maternity uniforms and child care on base, and on the other, unrealistically assuming that acting on sexual desire is a cultural artifact that can be trained out of people, is not working well. But the example of Sparta may imply that there are grown-up ways of allowing people to form mutual attachments.

As one who fought against the draft in the 1960s and 70s, I am very aware of the fact that to have a volunteer army, we need the services of women. But today's political requirements are playing havoc with what the services might be and do. For instance, the very characteristics that handicap women in combat–their relative lightness and smallness–would be of great advantage in submarine work. However, that is a service that requires such close quarters that there would be no privacy whatsoever for members of a mixed crew. Privacy on an aircraft carrier is difficult enough! Why can't we have as a goal at least some all-female submarine crews? There have been studies that indicate that women may be ideal for such service–they can function well in close quarters, their physical structure means they take up less room and use less air. But to do so would be flying in the face of the idea of interchangeability, so the push today is for integrated submarine crews, which the Navy is, not unexpectedly, resisting–among other reasons, for the cost of redesigning to allow for privacy. Politics requires integration, not "separate but equal."

Gutmann probably wouldn't go along with such ideas, but she has a number of suggestions that might improve the status quo. Eliminate recruiting quotas for women and let recruiters focus on getting the best people. Do what the Marines still do and go back to separating the sexes in training: "This would allow drill sergeants to restore discipline and standards because they could train the men as hard as they need to, without worrying about injuring the women." (279) And she points out that the physical manhandling that used to go on in boot camp has a very different meaning when a male drill sergeant is dealing with a woman half his size–let women train women. Restore "high and equal standards." Implement qualifying tests that have to be met for specific jobs and let scientists devise them. Restore openness, by which she means open discussion of gender differences. Create a special branch like a beefed-up Peace Corps, with military police to protect them and with exhaustive screening and full benefits, to fulfill the job of "social worker to the world" and to utilize the different temperaments of soldier and peacekeeper in different branches. Finally, take a hard look at the Marines, and why they alone of the services have no recruiting problems. Gutmann thinks it's because of their selling themselves "not as a place to work, but as a thing to be." (284)

A kinder, gentler military, even if it succeeds in making itself into a politically correct little world, may just not have enough to attract or keep enthusiastic enlistees in a full-employment America. But, hearing the Marine slogans, people like Courtney Couey still feel inspired to want to join.

Sharon Presley spoke for Secular Humanists of the East Bay on June 6. Her topic, "Critical Thinking for Humanists and Skeptics," is based on her forthcoming book, Think for Yourself: Surviving in a World That Wants You to Conform and Obey. Sharon is teaching Social Psychology as well as Psychology of Women for the summer and fall quarters at Cal State University, Hayward.