Women in The Military

Sara Luster

Sheer pain stung the body of Officer Sage Santangelo as she desperately tried to complete the Marine Corps officer course one morning. With sweat pouring down her face and a cold chill taking over her body, the decorated officer was forced to quit along with three other women that were trying to complete the course. She was more fit than the average American and showed outstanding tenacity in everything she does. In Colorado, Sage climbed ten of the highest mountains, was an outstanding hockey goalie, and took her first solo flight when she was only fifteen years old. So why couldn’t Sage Santangelo make it to the next level of the Marine Corps?

In Washington, there are several factors that are stopping women from getting to participate or considered to be in direct combat. The main arguments that senators make opposing the laws that would allow women to be considered as participating in direct combat are that women are not physically fit enough, that they are not mentally prepared for battle and don’t belong, or their presence would affect the unity of the troops or units. Throughout my speech today, I will work to show the world, that not all these stereotypes about women are true and that the military can have women that are in some combat positions while maintaining the stature of highest military power in the world.

Women are not meant for battle and do not have the mental capacity to handle that all direct combat presents. Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester received the Silver Star, which is the third highest award to get as a military officer for battle valor. Insurgents attacked the officer and her Kentucky National Guard convoy from a field they were driving by. The sergeant major and Hester had to kill the last four insurgents and the five foot four, female officer was able to kill 3 of the 4 insurgents.

Articles for class

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138200/megan-h-mackenzie/let-women-fight

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/us/16women.html

Theoretical Research

Army may train women for rigor of front lines

The Washington times wrote an article about the US military's involvement of women in the military. Instead of talking only about adding them into the infantry ranks, they sited some studies done about women's health in direct combat in Britain and Canada. More women got injured, more had to evacuated, and more could not maintain the physical aspect needed to fight in the front of battle lines. The article talked about how it was harder for women to endure the tough courses that the officers have to do, their physical abilities cannot match up with the men in the army, and in result they start to get injured and can't make it to high levels of the military. Some make the argument that women should be given the chance regardless of this if they were allowed to go to Ranger school, which trains the soldiers who have been in combat how to fight on front lines and can lead them to be higher officers. Some think that women should be given the chance to make it, even if only one women can, at least she got the shot. 

This is more abstract because it goes into more details about women's health and what they can and can't endure. It shows some of the weaknesses in women's physicality compared to men's. This is not necessarily making the command rethink the idea of letting women try to get into the infantry, they think that a very small women could potentially do it. 

New Beginnings

Fourteen extremely physically fit women have tried a failed the Marine Corps' Officer Course since it was opened to women in 2012, almost all of them failing on the first day of a 13 week course. This immediately causes red flags in people's minds. Is the course discriminating against women because they are physically different than men? In order to give women a fair chance at being a Marine Corps Officer, should we set double standards for them? Sage Santangelo, the 15th woman to fail, doesn't think so. Santangelo was a fearless hockey goalie, climbed tough mountain faces in her home state of Colorado, and had her first solo flight when she was only 15 years old; this course was her next (and biggest) challenge. She was very fit, so for the first half of the course she felt good, passing many men, but later the fatigue kicked in. As much as she wanted to she couldn't continue. When asked about her, and countless other women's failure, she explained her reasoning. Santangelo doesn't believe that there should be double standards used in the military. She says that in order to be a stable and reliable commander, you must pass the test that is put forth no matter what gender you are. The enemy and the terrain are not going to go easier on you because you are a woman. The course requirements depict almost exactly the conditions you might have to face as an officer. She believes that the real injustice women face is the training before the tests. In her earlier years of training she was always in gender separated groups, doing less in physical tests than men, always a second choice to her male counterparts when the two groups were brought together. If men and women were put together sooner then maybe women would have a chance to gain the muscle and experience needed to complete the officer course. So where do the inequalities really lie?

Anecdotes, factoids, 3 questions

Anecdotes:

1) When I was in elementary school, I loved playing sports and I was good at them; during gym class I always wanted boys to pass to me but they never would, having to prove myself to them before they included me in the game.

2) Sage Santangelo, along with 14 other women, all failed the Marine infantry fitness test; she believes not because they should be held to double standards but because women and men were segregated from the beginning and women were not held to as high fitness standards, therefore they did not have enough conditioning or experience. 

3)Colonel Dale Eikmeier was once assigned to be in the US embassy in Baghdad with a female helicopter pilot. The Iraqis there were very polite to her but, still, they could not take the female helicopter pilot too seriously because of their culture but eventually they saw how smart and able she was and they saw her as a special addition to the team. 

Factoids: 

1) In 2010, roughly 19,000 sexual assaults occurred in the military, and less than 14% of these were reported by survivors.
https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-military-discrimination

2) Beginning in 2003, the U.S. Army established all‐female (Lioness) teams specifically to accompany all‐ male Marine combat units into insurgent‐infested areas of Ramadi, Iraq. 
http://servicewomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/97-WIC-fact-sheet.pdf

3) Allowing women on submarines is an issue that had been considered and rejected several times since 1993. In February 2010 Defense Secretary Robert Gates notified Congress that the Navy intended to allow women officers on submarines. 

Questions:
1) How is women leadership viewed as opposed to men?
2) What are arguments against women being allowed in direct combat?
3) Are there many differences in why women join the military opposed to men? 

Possible Books

Books From Amazon:
Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War--Available
By: Helen Thorpe
Description: From an award-winning, “meticulously observant” (The New Yorker), and “masterful” (Booklist) writer comes a groundbreaking account of three women deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, and how their military service affected their friendship, their personal lives, and their families.'

Women in the Military: An Unfinished Revolution--Available

By: Jeanne Holm

Description: The first comprehensive historical survey of women in the American armed forces....Eloquent, inspiring and richly informative. --Publishers Weekly

Flying for Her Country: The American and Soviet Women Military Pilots of World War II --Available

By: Amy Goodpaster Strebe 

Description: During the Second World War, women pilots were given the opportunity to fly military aircraft for the first time in history. In the United States, famed aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran formed the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program, where over one thousand women flyers ferried aircraft from factories to airbases throughout the United States and Canada from 1942 to 1944. 

Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq--Available

By: Kirsten Holstedt

Description:  Band of Sisters presents a dozen groundbreaking and often heart-wrenching stories of American women in combat in Iraq, such as the U.S.'s first female pilot to be shot down and survive, the military's first black female pilot in combat, a young turret gunner defending convoys, and a nurse struggling to save lives, including her own.

Undaunted: The Real Story of America's Servicewomen in Today's Military--Available

By: Tanya Biank

Description: Since 9/11, more than 240,000 women have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan—more than 140 have died there, and they currently make up fourteen percent of the total active-duty forces. Despite advances, today’s servicewomen are constantly pressed to prove themselves, to overcome challenges men never face

The Forgotten Women Heroes: Second World War Untold Stories - The Women Heroes in the Extraordinary World War Two--Only available on Amazon

By: Scott S.F. Meaker

Description: These women have been footnotes in history and at least one of them was a model for women in James Bond books and movies. The women however have remained in the shadows of the stories of the Second World War. These women fade into history even though their actions were crucial in changing the outcome of the war. 

Women in the Line of Fire: What You Should Know About Women in the Military--Available

By: Erin Solaro

Description: In 2004, Erin Solaro went to Iraq to study American servicewomen — what they were doing, how well they were doing it, how they were faring in combat. In 2005, she went to Afghanistan on the same mission. Having spent time embedded with combat troops and conducting stateside interviews with numerous analysts and veterans, Solaro is convinced that the time to drop all remaining restrictions on women's full equality under arms is now.

A Civilian's Guide to the U.S. Military: A comprehensive reference to the customs, language and structure of the Armed Forces--Available

By:  Barbara Schading

Description: Does a corporal have to salute a lieutenant or is it the other way around? What are forward-deployed units? Is an "armored cow" a type of tank or something soldiers eat? Are Polaris missiles dropped from the air or launched from a submarine? If someone calls you a "Cat 4" should you be honored or offended?

Myths Of Gender: Biological Theories About Women And Men, Revised Edition--Available

By: Anne Fausto- Sterling

Description: By carefully examining the biological, genetic, evolutionary, and psychological evidence, a noted biologist finds a shocking lack of substance behind ideas about biologically based sex differences. Features a new chapter and afterward on recent biological breakthroughs.

Women in the Military: Flirting With Disaster--

By: Brian Mitchell

Description: Army veteran Brian Mitchell shatters stock Pentagon assurances to reveal that women have had a profoundly negative effect on U.S. fighting capabilities. 

Women in the military Question response

Story of______ who did not make it through the infantry training:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fourteen-women-have-tried-and-failed-the-marines-infantry-officer-course-heres-why/2014/03/28/24a83ea0-b145-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html

The question asked in my blog about women in the military is: what is the opinion of women being held to the same standards in the military?

Sage Santangelo wrote about her experience failing the marine infantry test. Santagelo took the test after years of training, climbing mountains, and playing on both men's and women's hockey teams. Regardless, she did not pass. She believes that women should, in fact, be held to the same standards as men in the tests to be in the infantry. She believes that if it was any different, then troops would be put in danger. Santagelo knows that women are naturally built differently than men, but she does not think that should lead to double standards. She thinks that women like her were failing the test in such great numbers because they were held to a double standard earlier, so that now they could not compete. In her earlier training as a marine, women were always segregated from men and had to do less to pass fitness tests. This made them have many less opportunities to grow stronger and also made their male counterparts see them as weaker.

Sage Santagelo thinks that they should give women a second chance at the test, because previously they were not allowed to after failing it once. She also thinks that you should be able to decide on an infantry career earlier so that you can get a good foundation to be in the infantry and pass the test.