In the still-dark-hours of the morning of January 15, 1990, the word was passed that the Persian Gulf war had started. One young male soldier, fearing that this was to be his last day of life, decided that he deserved one last sexual encounter before he died. He waited under the cover of the pitch blackness of the night for his unsuspecting victim, a female soldier walking alone. As she approached, the young man attacked and wrestled her to the ground. Minutes passed as he tried to get through all of his gear and clothing. Before he could complete his crime another soldier approached, and the aggressor fled.
In late 1990 and early 1991, thousands of American women marched off to the desert sands of the Middle East to serve in a war that brought women closer to combat than ever before. Although restricting women from occupying military jobs that would put them into direct contact with the enemy can be interpreted as a form of sex discrimination, as a female veteran of Operation Desert Storm, I believe that the restriction should remain as it is. Lifting this ban would not be a strategic move for the United States. Socially, our country is unprepared to allow women on the "front lines" because of situations involving sexual harassment, prisoners of war, mothers marching off to combat, and female draftees.
Sexual harassment is a tremendous problem in our society that for years has been hushed. But recently this problem has been brought to public attention, and the government has passed laws that make sexual harassment in the work place a criminal act. However, only futile attempts have been made at eliminating such misconduct in the military. The effects of the aggressive treatment that women experienced during Operation Desert Storm were noted by Elaine Connely, Executive of the Coalition for Military Readiness:
Then there were the sexual tensions that did not respond
to bureaucratic mandates for professionalism in the work place...
There were many reports of illegal fraternization, genuine sexual
harassment, and elevated pregnancy rate--all of which seriously
affected readiness and morale. (Donnelly 41)
The readiness and morale of the soldiers in the Middle East were affected by this country's inability to treat women and men as equals. Some radical women's movement groups believe that until we allow female combatants in all future wars, the United States cannot rid itself of its prejudices and sexist attitudes directed towards women. These civilian liberalists, who will probably never have to fight in war themselves, claim that by allowing women to choose to serve in direct combat, men will gradually come to see them as equals and learn to respect all women. This new respect, activists say, will start in the military and spill over into the civilian world, which will virtually eliminate all sexual harassment.
Sexual harassment, however, is likely to increase rather than decrease for those women on the battlefield. Something happens to people in combat; a change takes place. Because of the rage and fear these combatants experience as they kill and avoid being killed, they may sometimes regress to some primal state of being. Men, who have believed all of their lives that to kill another human being is to commit a mortal sin, regress to this primal state because they are forced to hunt a new game non-American homo sapiens and are themselves being hunted. In this kill- or-be-killed state of mind, these men then act upon every savage urge and impulse. They can no longer comply with social restraint. Women fighting beside these men may be seen as sources of sexual release, and battle fatigued men may believe that they have the right to force themselves on these women. Those who believe that murder is no longer immoral will also believe the same about rape.
While some men who regress into this savage state of mind may prey upon women, other men who have managed to hold on to their morality may feel the need to protect women serving with them. This sense of protectiveness, while not as dangerous to the women as the regressive hostility of their comrades fighting alongside, may be ultimately as harmful to them as it may be to our national security. With women involved in direct combat comes the increased probability and increased population of women being captured and held as prisoners of war. This situation puts our nation's security as its most vulnerable because "Studies have demonstrated that men find it more difficult to hear or witness the simulated torture of women than of other men" (Schlafly A12).
Men who are forced to witness the torture of women may offer their captors valuable information to end the torture of female prisoners of war. The enemy would quickly realize what a powerful tool they had for deriving information. The more women who are captured and the more heinous is their torture, the more secrets the enemy would learn from their male prisoners. Men who can withstand any type of abuse done to them might break down only when forced to watch the cruel torment of women. Powerful testimony was given during the Presidential Commission hearings on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces that drove home this point: "Several Vietnam POWs...Frankly told [the commission] that it would have been far more difficult to grit it out if women colleagues had been imprisoned with them" (O'Beirne A4).
The United States military is dealing with the problems of men being unable to contain their feelings of protectiveness towards female POWs by conducting training procedures for the desensitization of men to torture of women. Our allies do not conduct such training. No one can predict what country will be fighting alongside us in the next war; it might be a country harboring a strong protective feelings toward women. So, if our own American prisoners of war will not succumb to the torture of women, perhaps our allied prisoners will. The enemy could pry important strategic information from their prisoners that could result in the defeat of the United States and its allies. To eliminate this risk, we, as Americans, would have to shoulder the financial responsibility of training all allied military personnel in the desensitization of men to women. This problem would become paramount if women are allowed to participate in direct combat.
We might be creating social outcasts by desensitizing men to the abuse of women. These men, who today are being trained, do not live on the battlefield; they live in communities in the civilized world. After successful desensitization of these men, they would no longer be outraged at seeing a woman being gang raped. If they are unaffected by some immoral abuse, it is possible that society would shun them. It is unethical to transform a man into a social outcast.
Creating a social outcast may not be as horrible as allowing the traumatization of children by tearing them from their mothers who have to go off and fight a war. How can our American government advocate family values when it is so willing to take a nursing mother away from her infant so that she may go into battle? Elshtain argues, "A society that puts its children dead last is a society progressing rapidly toward moral ruin" (16). During the Persian Gulf war, one young mother with "a five-month-old nursing baby...pleaded to wean her baby, `but they said no...It's a nightmare' [she said] (Elshtain 15). Of course our military would argue that once a person has enlisted he or she has become the property of the United States government. So when a woman joins the military, she knows that her family will take second place to her career. However, during the Persian Gulf War, scenes of mothers being pulled away from their young children created social unrest among millions of people. The next war might not claim so few casualties and end as quickly as did Operation Desert Storm. And, if news coverage on the next war depicts young women as casualties, especially mothers who have been maimed and brutalized, this would warrant social outrage.
Social outrage will also be brought on by Americans having to send their daughters to register for the selective service. It is likely that draftees will be a part of the next war, due to the military drawdowns. If women are allowed to serve in combat, then the United States' drafting system will have to be revised to include women. Right now women are excluded from the draft because of the ban excluding women from combat. If this ban is lifted, there will no longer be grounds to have a male-only draft. Allowing a handful of hard-core women the opportunity to prove their abilities to kill as well as men is not worth the social turmoil it would create.
To allow women the opportunity to fight without disrupting society, a new law would have to be passed citing some new reason why women should not be included in the drafting system. If this were accomplished, and the decision of excluding women from direct combat military specialties were reversed, might it be possible that the attitudes society harbors about women would be reversed as well? Most likely not. American children are taught from birth that males and females are to be treated differently. Little boys are told not to hit little girls; girls are delicate and fragile. Boys are taught to prove their masculinity through sports and fighting, while little girls are given baby dolls and taught to be nurturing and dainty. How can this societal training be changed on the battlefield? A war is not the time nor the place to experiment with social change.
The United States needs a lot of social retraining before it is ready to allow women direct involvement in combat. We have to change the way we teach children social differences between the sexes. We have to change our slightly passive attitudes about social harassment. We have to change the stigma attached to women as being people who need to be protected. We also have to find some way to allow mothers to go into the battle zone without traumatizing their children. Finally, we need to deal with the fact that if women are allowed to serve in direct combat military specialties, then all women may have to be included in the Selective Service.
Works Cited
Donnelly, Elaine. "What Did You Do in the Gulf Mommy?" National Review Nov. 1991: 41-44.
Elshtain, Jean Bethke. "Feminism and War." The Progressive Sept. 1991: 14-16.
Evans, Rowland and Robert Novak. "Women & Combat." The Augusta Chronicle Nov. 1992: A4.
O'Briene, Kate Walsh. "The Bottom Line: Coed Combat Would Not Improve the Military." The Augusta Chronicle 3 Dec. 1992: A4.
Schlafly, Phyllis. "Keep Women From Combat." USA Today 15 June 1992: A12.
Towell, Pat. "Women's Combat Role Debated as Chiefs Denounce Sex Bias." Congressional Quarterly 1 Aug. 1992: 2292-2293.
Willis, Grant. "Commission Says a Woman's Place is Not in Combat." Army Times 16 Nov. 1992: 4+.