Gender and the Military

I do not personally know anyone currently employed by the military. Both of my grandfathers served in our nation's military during World War II. My father's father was a member of the Air Force and spent time on duty in Europe; my mother's father was a translator for the government. My mother's father, Harold, was born and raised on an Estonian island and had to stay in Germany for two years when he and his family tried to immigrate to the United States; thus he learned the German language very well and was of use to the American government's secret intelligence during the war. I do not know too much about either of my grandfathers' service, but I think I can safely assume that the odds of my grandmothers serving in the Air Force during WWII would have been slim to none. I would also assume that the extreme trust and heavy responsibility placed upon Grandpa Harold--the work he would do was so top-secret that he never told my mother or her family specifically what kind of things he did--would not be placed upon a woman. While times have changed significantly, we still see gender and sexuality discrimination in our military today. Whether or not we do it consciously, we associate violence and muscularity with masculinity in our culture. Military symbolism is frequently used to "enhance the masculine identification and appeal of products" in American advertising, according to Jackson Katz in his article "Advertising and the Construction of Violent White Masculinity". While it is true that there are true physical differences between men and women, this is not always the case, but it seems that we have been choosing to ignore this fact. We would likely be able to find a woman in the military with physical abilities superior to at least one man. The concerns about unit cohesion with a mixed-gender group are legitimate, but the editorial I read discusses alternatives that would hopefully ease potential tensions, such as having all-female units. The media play a large role in how American society as a whole shapes their viewpoints on women in the military. There have been several stories that went viral in the media about female soldiers who claimed to have been sexually abused and the subsequent harassment that followed these claims. The media spin stories to make us pity the female and remind us of why the female is not cut out for the world of warfare. The story of the NFL star Pat Tillman's service and death was also spun by the media to be something that it was not, so we see cases of male soldiers also being objectified and portrayed as things that they are not. When it comes to military spouses, we see that the primary focus is on military wives. This perpetuates the cultural norm of soldiers being male. There are reality television shows dedicated to documenting the lives of the wives of men serving our nation and all that comes with this territory. As far as I know, we do not have such television shows dedicated to military husbands, reinforcing the idea that women still have a lot to gain in terms of their prominence in the military.