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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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I AM an American Female Soldier! I Want to Kill to be Equal?
Monday 19 March @ 10:54:10 |
 BY CHANTE WOLF
Why have women fought to be in the military? Was it to affirm the rites of our citizenship? Did we think that we would get the respect we deserve from men when we showed off our combat infantry badges, Purple Hearts or silver crosses? Is this really equality? Why do women want to learn to kill?
 I have seen the crisply-dressed recruiters strut down the halls of school buildings. Their shoes tap out their military song of discipline, strength, intimidation and non-thinking robotic engagement. Just below the surface is an undercurrent of sheer violence that they can call up with the snap of their fingers, having been trained to kill using whatever means necessary. They smile and wink at the babes, then toughen for the dudes and soak in pure machismo and ego. To me they represent sharks patrolling the waters, sniffing out fresh meat to toss into the fields of slaughter--so they can stay home.
My initial experience when I looked into joining the military--at the suggestion of my father, a Navy veteran--was with a very sweet, smiling recruiter who kept his distance and promised me that the women in the military were not all dykes and that I would get trained as a photographer--my passion since the sixth grade.
The women who were in my basic training flight joined the military for the money, for the life change, the excitement of travel, the physical and mental challenges, to get an education, to get out of an abusive relationship, to be in the same branch their husbands were in, or to find a husband. I joined to get trained as a photographer, which never happened. But that didn't stop me from staying in for 12 years, and for one war.
It wasn't until after basic training that I had my fill of what the men in the military thought of women in the military, working the jobs that had been their domain--we were fresh meat. I also learned more about the labels of "lesbian," "dyke," "whore" and "tramp" and how those labels are used to keep women in line and under the control of men. See, you are either married or dating. If you are single and you refuse the advances of a man, then you are considered a lesbian or you are simply a woman who hasn't had the right dick yet. My experience was that female friendships in the military were strained and kept at arms length, unless under the supervision of a man. That was 1980 to 1992 and now I see that things are a lot more intense and dangerous for women in the military.
 The reasons women join haven't changed much since I enlisted. However, I have yet to hear a woman tell me she joined to "blow shit up," rape, torture or bomb people back to the Stone Age just to prove their equality. And I have never heard anyone tell me they joined to support the war profiteers and oil companies in securing profits or more correctly, to serve the interests of fascism.
So why do women want to learn to kill? I never thought about it myself really, because there was no occupation raging in distant deserts, so it was really not in my immediate thoughts. I still learned to kill however, and I was a marksman with the M-16; why didn't that bother me at all at the time? I even put Iraqi "towel heads" in my cross-hairs as I prepared to deploy for the Persian Gulf War and that never bothered me either--I suppose because it was just a basic "them or me" survival mode.
Has learning to kill kept us free and equal? In her book, "Citizenship Rites," Ilene Feinman writes about the cadence used in the military academy: "Rape, Maim, Kill Babies. Rape, Maim, Kill Babies, Oorah!" Another one is from "War, Battering and Other Sports" by James McBride: "This is my weapon, this is my gun; This is for business, this is for fun." And this from the DVD "The Ground Truth": "Rape the town and kill the people. That's the thing we love to do. Throw some napalm on the schoolhouse. Watch the kiddies scream and shout." When women chant these lines, what are we being equal to? Or is this really a part of desensitizing us to violence against ourselves?
Women's presence in the military hasn't stopped women from being raped. In her article "For Female Soldiers, Sexual Assault Remains a Danger," Celina DeLeon writes: "According to the Pentagon, there were 2,374 reported cases of sexual assault against women in uniform over the past year. (This includes about 400-plus cases in which the victim was a civilian and the alleged offender was in the military). But as the saga of military police officer Suzanne Swift shows, numbers alone don't tell the whole story. "Swift, 22, was sexually harassed by one sergeant and coerced into a sexual relationship by another sergeant while on duty in Iraq ... [and] last summer, Swift was stationed at Ft. Lewis in Washington, where she was sexually harassed by another commanding sergeant."
According to a 2003 New York Times article, a survey that was taken at the Air Force Academy of 579 women "found that nearly 70 percent of them said they had been the victims of sexual harassment, of which 22 percent said they experienced 'pressure for sexual favors.'" There were 659 women enrolled at the academy at the time of the survey."
In her recent article, Helen Benedict writes: "Callie Wight, a psychosocial counselor in women veterans' health in Los Angeles, has been treating women who were sexually assaulted in the military for the past 11 years. In all that time, she told me, she has only seen a handful of cases where a woman reported an assault to her commander with any success in getting the assailant punished. 'Most commanders dismiss it,' she said. A nine-month study of military rape by the Denver Post in 2003 found that nearly 5,000 accused military sex offenders had avoided prosecution since 1992."
War is not a place for women, and the men have known this, because the rules of engagement call for all means necessary to win and to dehumanize the enemy--including women and children. War is not pretty, nor is it polite and healing. War does not win anything but medals for promotions, male ego and corporate profits. Where is the equality for women's participation in this event? By becoming manly, do women then become protected from the violence war permeates?
McBride writes: "The enemy as female, metaphorically inscribed in these male practices (war and sports), sometimes has its nightmarish realization in the widespread occurrence of rape on battlefields abroad and in the near epidemic emotional and physical abuse of women here at home. But it is not only women who suffer but all those who are depicted in a 'womanly,' that is, submissive, position, as is evidenced by the tens of thousands of Iraqi casualties during the Gulf War and by increasing prevalence of gay-bashing."
Did I earn my citizen rites? Did I free people to speak openly and freely, to secure a 40-hour workweek with health care, vacation and sick time? Did I help stop slavery, get women the right to vote, support civil rights and immigration laws, unions or stop child sweatshops? In what way did my service keep Americans free? And what freedoms are our military service personnel talking about when they say they are protecting freedoms? What equality have women fought for while serving in the military? Did their service stop sexual harassment, rape and gang rape, domestic violence, stalking and murder of other women in the military and civilian life? Did my service really secure peace?
Do women really want to be an equal part of killing and blowing shit up? Will this earn us any respect and dignity at all or is this just a way for the system to desensitize us to the violence against us? ||
Chante Wolf served from 1980 to 92 in the United States Air Force and deployed to the Persian Gulf War in 1991. She can be reached at the Veterans for Peace, Chapter 27 office at vfpchapter27@gmail.com.
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