There is a full court press by Mr. Allen on a 1979 article Mr. Webb wrote about women in combat back in the days when women had first been admitted to (or, if you prefer, "forced on") the military academies. Given that the piece was written 27 years ago, and there's been a lot of water over the dam since, and given that Mr. Webb has said he is now comfortable with the present status of women in the military--- but will not commit to renouncing every last thing he said in that 1979 article, I have something to say as a woman:
How many of you were alive during the Depression? During World War II, much less during Vietnam? I was, and it gives one a somewhat different perspective on all this brouhaha.
Have any of you read Mr. Webb+óGé¼Gäós several books, most especially +óGé¼+ôFields of Fire+óGé¼-¥ based on his combat experience in Vietnam? I myself come from a military family, my father was an infantry battalion commander throughout World War II with the 1st Infantry Division, including landing on Omaha Beach on D-day; also in Korea with the 7th; my husband fought in Korea and Vietnam; my son is in Iraq on his third tour. Combat is not a video game, it is desperate, exhausting, frightening, up close and personal for the boots on the ground infantry-type.
I remember conditions and public sentiment at the time Mr. Webb wrote the article now the subject of controversy. I myself am in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment (remember that quaint attempt to create an environment which would make women something more than second class citizens?) But even I would hesitate to mingle women with men in a small unit infantry combat team, even today when we have so much technology to insulate the less muscular from direct enemy hand to hand. Women can be fighter pilot jockies, run almost everything else in today+óGé¼Gäós military and do it as well as if not better than muscle-bound macho jerks, but direct combat hand to hand in a mixed unit? Even in an augmented high-tech combat suit? I agree with 1970+óGé¼Gäós Mr. Webb, unhappily. I would point out that extreme right-wingers like the Eagle Forum agreed with Mr. Webb then and now, so the smug anti-Webb comments by various so-called conservatives are a little out of place.
Beyond that, there is the fact that, when Mr. Webb was Sec. of the Navy, he opened up far more operational billets in the Navy to women than had been available in the past, and began the trend where we are today with ALMOST full integration of women in every phase. I'm proud of these military women today. But, I am sad to see a few of my fellow women have allowed themselves to be used to denigrate Mr. Webb in this degrading fashion+óGé¼GÇ¥ again.
Hazing rituals have always been part of clubs where boys are supposedly turned into men, sad to say. Young guys trying to turn themselves into men indulge in group think and will use any excuse that comes to hand to be cruel--- to boys as well as to women when they are undergoing the male validation rituals. Blaming Mr. Webb for the treatment those earlier female midshipmen suffered is, in my opinion, understandable but, in the final analysis, unfair.
The hatred some men feel toward females entering their secret clubs (including most especially military clubs like Annapolis, the Citadel AND Virginia's VMI)is, frankly, primitive, and not what Mr. Webb was talking about in his article. He was discussing the very valid concern about military effectiveness in combat, not a personal concern about his own masculinity+óGé¼GÇ¥ which is what the adolescent midshipmen were thinking.
First, I think most of the hazing that has traditionally been done in all-male institutions serves little purpose. People like to be petty dictators. It is easy to fall into. For some reason, while we were getting heads shaved and a few other things in boot camp, I was put in charge of giving some basic instructions, and to be in a position of power, albeit petty power, compared to what all the others were doing at Hthat point, had its intoxicating appeal - I saw how easily it was tgo coopt people by giving them a bit more power and authority than others.
That said, I understood that part of the boot camp process was to strip away the outside identity, build a unit cohesiveness and esprit de corps, and all that. I do not think some of the brutality to which we were subjected was necessary, any more than I thought in the summer of 1965 it was necessary to indoctrinate us with terminology like "gooks" "slopes"and "dinks" to prepare us for the possibility of combat in Vietnam. I recognize that it is far easier to kill someone you do not perceive as fully human, but that does not justify the dehumanization being subject to such indoctrination does to those receiving that training.
In one sense Jim is being very consistent. He does not believe that you can easily change military culture by imposing upon it from the outside. He is comfortable with letting the military examine itself and attempt to move forward. One might argue that this does not always work - it took an executive order by Truman to force the military to integrate racially, for example. But it is an intellectually justifiable position.
And I often wonder about some of the women who continue to criticize Webb on this if they truly believe that they would be better served by George Allen on this issue, to say nothing of all the other issues of importance to women (equal pay, women's health initiative, choice, etc) than they would be Jim Webb?
Thanks for offering your clear prose. You add a lot to our discussions.
My response was that if that was the rationale, then they all should also be required to wear bright red lipstick, too. But no, toying with the identity of men is over the top. More disturbing than the constant head shaving of women was the hostility that accompanied those pronouncements.
Sadly, the people who right now are voicing this false outrage are the very ones who have a deep commitment to restricting opportunity for women. The right blames the death of women in Iraq on the ACLU as one contorted example.
Name one single proactive step that George Allen has ever taken during his tenure as Governor or Senator to advance the status of women in the military. Or women in general. There aren't any.
Men and women are dying in service to our country. Now. They have committed their lives and we have a candidate who can't even commit to fulfilling the office that he seeks.
High school women are being raped and assaulted by recruiters. Now.
Yes, those women who attack Jim Webb are allowing themselves to be used by the very individuals who would blame them if they were sexually assaulted in their time at the academy.
What about the thunder thighs comment? I haven't seen it documented. It's nothing to be proud of. But I will say, and I'm sure you know this, teacherken, women Marines were called BAMs all the time. Every day by everyone. Thunder thighs is actually an incremental improvement.
I've written before about the social context back then, that women weren't even allowed to run an Olympic marathon, etc. etc. Maybe I should dig it out and repost.
Those women demonstrate a profound lack of awareness of their history. The culture was there. It was improving. They demonstrate complete ignorance of the women who went before them and had it much, much harder. They count on others sharing that ignorance if they expect to convince us that somehow out of the clear blue in an otherwise egalitarian society, Jim Webb created out of whole cloth with the writing of his single article an unfair environment that they had to endure. That is just such bullshit.
I asked pardon for what I am now about to reproduce, but it is much as part of the negative memories of the Marines (there are many positive ones) as were the ethnic slurs imposed upon us about the Vietnamese.
Okay, WMS, Woman Marines, were often referred to as
"Wam, Bam, thank you Ma'am"
as if the only possible justification was to be available to sexually service male marines.
I was friends (social, not romantic) with several women Marines who told me some of their horror stories.
When I served there were very few MOSs open to females. There was no logical reason a woman could not be in the post band as was I, or in data processing which was my other service. Here's the idiocy - we had no ENLISTED women in data processing, but the executive officer of the unit was a female Captain. And when Major Dave was out of the office, she sure as heck knew how to command male marines!
Actually, I am of the heretical opinion that women should be the supreme national leaders, and you guys are simply there to stand behind us as the muscle bound enforcers of our decisions. It is when these macho egos start running things we get ourselves all wrapped around the axle in unnecessary wars because the egos can't back down and seem to believe that muscle solves everything ("might makes right"). Dumb oxen.
When I was a young girl women had just been "given" the vote, and the general consensus was this right to vote was silly since they'd of course vote as their husbands told them to, so it just doubled the male vote. And, let's see, there were, as you say, nasty sexual comments about exactly what those service women were up to (obviously, servicing the men in uniform, and what good father would consider letting his daughter join the Army?) Such sexual hangups and over-emphasis continues today (as I remember, Private England from Abu Ghraib ended up pregnant, didn't she?) We are still in the middle of this so-called sexual revolution, which should be better called gender revolution, maybe--- even the President of Harvard had some trouble about women's abilities, did he not?
But George Allen is so mired in the medieval outlook of his fellow neocons that he is more like a patricipant in Islamic fundamentalism, no matter what protective coloration he tries to put on for election purposes. Which brings us back to the Navy women who rallied behind him to oppose Webb. It is bewildering.
I'm not up on all the details, but it really wasn't that long ago that women had a real problem, or were prohibited from owning property. I bought a house in my own name as recently as 1988 and the attorney made an enormous issue of the extra work required to insert "femme sole" and he was a high volume real estate attorney.
I remember that my grandfather was able to put his and my grandmother's home in their son-in-law's name over my grandmother's very strong objections. He didn't need her signature or permission. I believe that was in the 60's or 70's.
The same grandmother told me the whole story after he had passed away. It's rather colorful, but too much of a digression. The point is that she was totally powerless in a situation where she was justified. And for what it's worth, she did not have the vote as a young woman.
And I remember myself the RTD want ads were separated Males and Females. There was HUGE resistance over that. The bewildering part is that those who resisted all of these progressive changes are the very ones who are faking indignance.
Number/Percent of Physicians
MALE FEMALE
1970 308,627 92.4% 25,401 7.6%
1980 413,395 88.4% 54,284 11.6%
1990 511,227 83.1% 104,194 16.9%
2000 618,233 76.0% 195,537 24.0%
So in a 30 year span the proportion of women physicians roughly tripled. Several other professions underwent similar changes.
What the numbers fail to show are the cultural changes that were necessary to accompany those real changes even in areas that did not require a high level of physical strength. Many people refused to go to a woman doctor, and they argued with women police officers, etc. etc. There was discussion about the phenomenon of women making more than their husbands in some cases. On and on. That was part of the context. I would venture to say that Webb's article during that era would have fallen quite close to center of contemporaneous standards in the dialog among career military.