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In honor of Women’s History Month, let’s take a look at the experience of women in today’s military. Has it changed, evolved, and improved in the last century? Definitely. Is that process complete? Definitely not.
You can’t go very long right now without seeing a news article about someone who has become the first woman to hold a previously male-only combat or leadership role. This is great in that it shows integration is actively occurring. However, the very existence of these news stories is indicative of the fact that full integration has not yet been achieved.
You’ve likely also noticed an uptick in articles related to women in the military and sexual harassment and sexual assault. These important issues are thought to have a number of causes and a great deal of attention is paid to them, including a military office dedicated solely to monitoring and decreasing their prevalence. More attention is also being paid to the unique mental health challenges that women face in the military.
The truth is that military service for women is amazing, frustrating, empowering, and sometimes downright bizarre. Consequently, I’d like to focus on some of the less visible hurdles that women face, which in turn feed the larger challenges that occur.
Let’s start with an example. On this particular day, I stopped at a grocery store on the way home from work. I was wearing my Navy khaki uniform. While I was standing in front of a counter trying to decide what I wanted, a woman came up next to me. She was very well dressed, rather distinguished looking, and I estimate she was in her late 50s or early 60s. The most notable thing about her was that she was staring at me in such a way that made me very uncomfortable. I ordered my food and hoped to get out of there as quickly as possible.
Before I could make my departure however, she lifted her arm, extended her index finger and poked me in the shoulder. It occurred to me (I am a psychologist after all) that she thought she might be hallucinating me. I turned my head to look at her and she said, “Are you a real military lady?” I’m normally pretty quick on my feet but my brain could think of nothing to do except to say “Yes.” She then began to sputter and thank me repeatedly for my service. Let’s table this story and look at another.
In one of the jobs I had in the military, I was the only woman at my particular work site. I was also only one of two officers and the rest of the personnel were largely senior enlisted. On this particular occasion, after I had been stationed there for about a year, about 10 of us were sitting around at the end of the day. The topic of conversation was a promotion ceremony that was to occur the next day. Promotion ceremonies require an officer – and the other officer was not available.
I sat there with men who I had been working with for a long time, who called me ma’am every day, and who knew what my rank was and that clearly I was an officer. Yet something in them just did not compute. Being genuinely interested in what was happening in the room, I let them go on for some time, trying to problem solve where to find an officer to do the ceremony. We all have limits though, and eventually I intervened, saying something sarcastic (which can’t be printed here), which brought them back to what I considered reality. I feel I must emphasize that these men are good men, with no nefarious intent, and who seemed genuinely astonished by the episode – obviously I did the ceremony, which was my fourth there – this was nothing new, which made the entire incident even weirder.
These two examples are divergent yet intertwined. Sometimes being a woman in the military means that people see you and aren’t sure what to make of you, questioning your very existence. At other times, people who know you don’t "see" you, because you don’t fit into their unconscious cognitive construct of what a member of the military is and looks like. These issues are the foundation that feeds into some of the larger problems that women face serving the military.
Until we are able to see military women as service members first and women second, we will continue to experience problems with integrating women into the military. Currently male service members are defined as the norm, while female service members continue to be primarily defined by gender.
As the number of women in the military increases, as more women are integrated into all jobs, as more women take on leadership positions, as the stereotypes dissipate, and as our presence is further normalized, these problems will continue to be better addressed. For now, individual military women will continue to break through glass ceilings, protect the country, advance science, and break down gender barriers.
The views presented in this blog post are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Navy, the Defense Health Agency, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Government, or any other institution with which the author is affiliated.
