The feminist remaking of the military and re-writing of military history

Lydia McGrew writes:

Here’s a topic that it seems to me you and your readers at VFR could discuss without inhibition: The relatively new use, even among conservatives, of the phrase “our men and women in the military.” There were women in certain branches of the military long ago, but no one felt any hesitation about referring to “our boys over there,” “the men who are fighting for our country,” “our men in uniform,” and the like. The WACS and WAVES didn’t have to be specially included in such phrases during WWII and Korea, because everyone knew it was the men who were doing the actual fighting. With the continual integration of women into all roles, including combat-in-all-but-name, and the feminization of the military, we all now feel we must include the phrase “and women.” The self-imposed ban on phrases like “our boys” or “our men” seems even to extend backwards in time. I have not seen for a long time now a Veterans Day or Memorial Day tribute to “the men who have fought for our freedoms” even when the reference is to years past. Compromises are “our service people” or the repeated use of “our soldiers” without any other masculine terms.

I think this is distressing. For one thing, it obscures the reality of past wars which were definitely fought by men. And if one were to refer in the present to “our men in the military,” one would be thought churlish, as if one did not wish the women presently in the military a safe return home.

It makes me want to defy the ban and post good wishes for and gratitude to “our men in the military,” being willing to say if asked, “I think very few women should be in the military and none in the kinds of warrior roles (though they are called support roles) that they now occupy. I think the use of women in the military that we currently have is a disaster waiting to happen, and I wish most of them would be sent home.”

But it seems a shame that feminism and the problems it raises intrude into our patriotic national holidays in this way. One shouldn’t have to talk about it at all in this context.

LA replies:

It has been discussed before, though I can’t at the moment find a full discussion of it. Here is one reference. I wrote:

Writes (Ms.) Collin Levey at the Wall Street Journal: “Who among us was not pulled up short by the shocking and jarring image of a young woman suddenly taken prisoner by the Iraqis?”

Answer: Those who were pulled up short for the last 20 years by the image of young women soldiers training next to men and marching in formation next to men; those who were pulled up short by the image of young women sailors serving on battle ships and aircraft carriers; those who were pulled up short by the sight of female fighter pilots and female “generals”; those who were pulled up short by politicians’ routine references to “sending our sons and daughters in harm’s way”; and those who were pulled up short by the sight of young women kissing their husbands and children goodbye as they (the women, that is) went off to fight in foreign wars.

We who have known all along that women do not belong in the regular armed forces, period, are not surprised by the image of women POWs. But liberals and mainstream conservatives, who have all along regarded sex differences as being of no importance in the organization of human society, are suddenly “shocked, shocked” by one of the inevitable practical consequences of that belief.

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Clark Coleman writes:

Here is a book that interested parties should read.

As you indicated, this topic has been discussed at VFR. I referenced Brian Mitchell’s books in two previous threads, here and here.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 26, 2009 01:18 PM | Send