Category Archives: gender gap

Women in Combat

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The ban on women fighting in combat has been lifted. By 2016 women will be allowed in combat on the front lines and a lot of feminists would say “huzzah” this feminist, however, is not. I don’t agree that women should be on the front lines—not because they are women but because there are things that need to happen on the front lines that the female body as a whole cannot do. That is not to say that some women can’t meet the requirements—of course they can. My concern is that those requirements will be lessened in the interest of appearing “equal”.
Hand grenades have to be thrown 15 meters. They have to. If they are not they can kill the person that threw it or anyone around them. I can’t throw 15 meters, I can throw a spiral and I’ve got what’s been called a “cannon” of an arm—but I can’t throw as far as my dude…my physicality isn’t made the same way. Again, some women will be able to throw that far, some woman can bench more than men, so some women are fit but all women are not and to open those flood gates endanger lives.
Apart from the strength and distance requirements there are the mental requirements. I was brought up by a marine. There is a code: unit, corp, God, country. That’s not just a line from a movie that is a real code that they live by. Your unit is more important than your family—it transcends a family—your unit is an extension of yourself and I’m sorry but some men in the military do not respect women. That will probably never change. Even if it did, men of other cultures do not respect women and to see a woman in an infantry would make her a major target. Much like when Prince Harry wasn’t allowed to fight on the front lines because it would put his unit in danger. People would target HIM and therefore his unit would be targeted. A woman in an infantry puts her unit in a spotlight—not what you want during combat.
There is also cohesion in a unit. This goes back to men not respecting women in the military (rent The Invisible War or read my review to see how much respect we get). You are told to protect the person to your left and your right—but if you hate the person on your right you will not protect them, you may put them in danger and that puts the rest of the unit in danger. Furthermore—what if you get a little crush? Now you’re focused on protecting her at all costs and not following orders. It’s too complicated, it’s too risky.
My point is—there is a ripple effect to this that no one wants to talk about because it’s wrong. It’s so wrong! A woman should be allowed to have any job she wants in the military in theory, but in reality it’s dangerous. Until society can wrap their heads around women being “people” and not the “weaker sex” or “made from man” than, in my opinion, it’s far too dangerous to move forward with this. I’d rather my military be focused on the job at hand and not on the elephant in the room aka “the girl in the unit”.



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The Historic Totem Pole of a Woman’s Worth

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The story begins with a historical perspective on how female African American slaves were treated in America’s past. The basic gist is that these women were slaves first, and then women/ mothers/ wives second. All slaves worked, regardless of their gender.

What could bring them back to their gender in a slave owner’s eyes would be the owner’s sexual onslaught onto the woman. This rape was yet another despicable form of control. Pregnant slaves, as well as those who had recently given birth, were to constantly work in the fields at the same level as any man.

While a slave woman was valued as a reproductive machine, that capability still did not give her preferential treatment. The black female slave was at the very bottom of society. Even her gender was another way to lower her already abysmal place in life.

Even today, being black or being a woman makes a person less likely to succeed. The preferential odds are against individuals who are not white or male.

There is now a classic psychological experiment: who is most employable? When a job is posted and many people apply, white men are the most likely to be hired, then Asian men, then Hispanic men, and then black men.  A white woman is on the same ranking employability level as a Hispanic or black man. Lastly comes the black woman, below all the rest. Having a vagina has always been a handicap.

This is no surprise, considering that black men gained the right to vote with the 15th Amendment- while women of every race waited until the 19th Amendment.

Truly, historically women in America were generally considered lesser beings from every angle. We are still today assessing the female’s place in our society. Hopefully, there will eventually be some consensus on a woman being equal in rights to a man. Or those who aren’t of Caucasian, European descent being employable. Or gay people being equal to straight people. Or not having to use any label to determine your life’s course.

If the American dream is to use hard work and determination in order to climb and succeed, then the dream would be much more plausible without weighted labels. As Gaga says, we were born this way, so make like musical Glee and reach for the stars.

Or something less cheesy sounding.



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Sexism in Your Friendly Neighborhood Restaurant

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I have been a waitress for the past six years. It is part of my identity, along with student, social worker, and friend. In restaurants, I’ve seen a lot happen. The clientele is a snapshot of the general population, and the employees are even more colorful. This isn’t the Ryan Reynolds movie Waiting levels of ridiculousness, but it sure is close.

I feel as if I’m betraying my people in sharing these experiences. For instance, one restaurant I worked in would only hire female servers and male cooks. Whenever my female friends were looking for a job, I’d have to tell them to dress up cute so the owner would notice and hire her. If she didn’t get hired, then she was left feeling as if she wasn’t attractive enough for the job. We are not at Hooters where this sort of nonsense is seemingly ok.

When my male friends wanted a job, I’d have to tell them that they wouldn’t be allowed to serve, which positively makes better money than cooking. “Women in the front, men in the back.” We easily forget about gender discrimination against men. It still exists. Why does it have to matter, what the gender is of the person cooking your food or carrying your wings?

Other forms of discrimination existed, such as an unmarried female server becoming pregnant and no was longer given hours. After all, this is a family friendly restaurant, and the managers don’t want their place to be tarnished with sin.

Prejudice and discrimination seem to exist everywhere. Whether you are a woman being paid 1/4 less than your male counterparts, a person being hired for their looks that give the  workplace the look management is seeking, or a person unable to break into a job that breaks common gender roles- you are being discriminated against.

We tend to cite the business world for gender discrimination. It still occurs elsewhere, at lower pay levels and in different forms. I felt guilty to be a representation of a workplace that so blatantly discriminates, but not enough to leave the job. There is such an easy parallel drawn to feminism’s fight of equality. How can I expect men to fight for gender equality rights, if I will not fight for theirs?



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Male Killers More Overt, But No Crueler Than Females

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Scales with Men and Women

The recent movie theater massacre in Aurora shocked the country.  On some level, it did to movie-going what 9/11 did to flying—essentially, took away the innocence of what had hitherto been a common, everyday occurrence.

And, predictably, in the face of world-rocking disasters set into place by humans, the situation has been parsed on many levels.  Who was this James Holmes?  Why did he go with “The Joker”?  What could happen to cause a doctoral student to run amok?  What does this mean to the gun-control pissing contest?  Did Holmes’ psychiatrist have an obligation to alert authorities as to his profoundly violent tendencies?

I found myself most intrigued by a piece from Erika Christakis, an administrator at Harvard University, positing that mass murder has a tendency to be … well, a male-dominated club.  While Christakis admits that it’s not like women never kill (and there’s the odd female serial killer that’s floated through history), it’s an inarguable fact that the most shocking acts of violence, including but not limited to mass murder, have been “overwhelmingly perpetrated by men”.

In fact, Christakis goes so far as to say throw out there that “our silence about the huge gender disparity of such violence may be costing lives.”

Hmm …

From Time:

Imagine for a moment if a deadly disease disproportionately affected men. Not a disease like prostate cancer that can only affect men, but a condition prevalent in the general population that was vastly more likely to strike men. Violence is such a condition: men are nine to 10 times more likely to commit homicide and more likely to be its victims. The numbers are sobering when we look at young men. In the U.S., for example, young white males (between ages 14 and 24) represent only 6% of the population, yet commit almost 17% of the murders. For young black males, the numbers are even more alarming (1.2% of the population accounting for 27% of all homicides). Together, these two groups of young men make up just 7% of the population and 45% of the homicides. And, overall, 90% of all violent offenders are male, as are nearly 80% of the victims.

A lot of my teacher friends and colleagues and I have a theory on fighting that goes on in schools—basically, if girls get into a fight, it’s forever.  Oh, they may smile and “make up”, but both sides (and their legions of friends) will never forget the situation.  It gets dragged up repeatedly, often into adulthood.  Boys get pissed at each other, beat the shit out of each other, and have basically forgotten the whole thing within a month and often become friends.

As this has always been my attitude, I found those statistics troubling, to say …

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