Category Archives: politics

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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Where Is America’s Daddy Leave?

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America is not so forward thinking as we would hope. Sure, occasionally gay people gain a few rights, and now we can reference those times we elected a half black President. This does not mean that America is any where near reaching the equality mark for any area of discrimination.

People don’t want to hear that we live in a discriminatory patriarchal world anymore, but the numbers don’t lie. Paternal leave is rarely offered in America. Women are in fact still penalized for maternity leave- after her fourth maternity leave, the CEO of Crest White Strips was asked to step down. Instead, she took her case to court.

In Sweden, the men are very much pushed into accepting their equal rights to a leave from work after a child is born. In 1995, Sweden introduced “daddy leave”. It had an immediate impact. No father was forced to stay home, but the family lost one month of subsidies if he did not. Soon more than 80% of men accepted paternal leave. Obviously, men could not as readily validate staying at work whilst losing money.

Money is a great motivator, but pride works even better. The pride that keeps these men at work when they have the paid option at to be at home with their lovely offspring is the same pride that makes them now accept parental leaves. Since the better option has now been normalized, men are capable of accepting their newfound equality.

This is not merely a fight for equal rights for women in the workplace, but also for equal rights for men in the home. The right to stay home with your child is not one afforded to most American men, and we are supposedly a superpower country.

Gender roles are so deeply, socially ingrained from birth that it seems we can do nothing to fight Sweden’s fight. Luckily, other countries are following suit: Germany, Portugal, and Iceland.

I take at this legislation as something that America is not good at: preventative measures. While this law has helped lower the divorce rate, raise women’s pay by seven percent, fight gender inequality, and probably more often raises strongly attached children, America can’t be interested in it because it is not a quick fix.

This isn’t just about parental leave, but gender equality in general. Only twelve of the five hundred CEOS of Fortune 500 companies are women. I know that national pride is important, but it is hard to be proud of my supposed super power homeland when they are not capable of doing so many things that a tiny, peaceful country of Sweden can do.



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My State Almost Tried To Ignore The Constitution

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I live in North Carolina. That’s the United States east coast. My state has the Biltmore in the beautiful mountains to the west, Charlotte with major banking institutions in the southwest, well-known excellent hospitals and a major hub of technology businesses in Research Triangle Park, and our coastline in the east has beaches, a warm ocean, and the North Carolina sound is known for both Blackbeard’s activities and Roanoke Island (where an early colony vanished, leaving the word: “Croatoan” as the only clue regarding their disappearance). Large portions of The Hunger Games and Iron Man 3 were filmed here.

So, I like my state. Did we join with the bad guys* during the Civil War? Yes. Were we the home state of one of the worst US Senators in living memory, the late Jesse Helms? Unfortunately, yes. BUT for most of my life, we’ve had a Democratic governor. In 2008, North Carolina turned blue and voted to elect President Obama. We have a good education system and some wonderful universities (including Duke, of course—I did not go there for college, but I participated in some wonderful Duke programs in my early teens).

So, when I say that my state’s behavior on the governmental level since 2010 has been scary and out-of-character, I mean it. I cringe when my state is mentioned on The Daily Show because it used to be that we would get mentioned on the news because a hurricane had devastated our east coast or because of a record-setting outbreak of tornadoes in Raleigh in April 2011 that had meteorologists from all over the country in a tizzy.

Now, in 2010, as happened all over the country, a wave of scary, fringe-right Republicans (and I do mean fringe-right) came into office. In spring of 2012, there was a vote and Amendment One passed—strictly defining marriage between one man and one woman as the only legally recognized domestic union in the state. Politicians from both sides of the aisle argued fiercely against it, but it passed. For the record, the parts of the state with universities in them? They voted against Amendment One. As seen in the map below.

The counties in which I have lived and a county in which I intend to live? All voted against Amendment One. The state’s urban areas all fell under this category. But, like the rest of the world, North Carolina is getting better with time.

That said, we got a little scare as the speaker of our (currently terrifying) state house of representatives put forward but then buried (after a few days of embarrassing national media attention) a bill which would have attempted to render North Carolina exempt from the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Stupid, right? The Supremacy Clause in the Constitution is there for a reason. And the First Amendment is . . . I mean, really important. You can read more about that story here.

It kind of gets worse, though. Spurred by interest in the topic, a poll found that one-third of those Americans who participated (hopefully they oversampled some demographic, because that is just too high a fraction) would favor making Christianity the official religion in their home states. It also found that one-third would favor making Christianity the official religion of the United States.

One. Third. Of Americans.

Guys, that’s terrifying. I don’t even want my religion as the official faith of my state or country, much less someone else’s.

Honestly, I was more comfortable when it was just a few state representatives in my state acting up while they’re still in power. Embarrassing, sure, but just a bump in the road of progress.

One-Third of Americans want an official** state religion. If that’s true, I don’t even know what to do about that. It’s scary.

 

*Guys, Lincoln and the Union weren’t perfect, but let’s not ever pretend that the good guys/bad guys line is not obvious. I don’t like the states having the power to set different ages of consent or requirements for a driver’s license, and you can disagree with me if you like. But the Confederacy was fighting for the rights of the states to own human beings because of their race. Those are called the bad guys. And I say “we,” because it’s not like I’m from NC because my parents happened to move here. My maternal grandfather’s grandmother remembered the Civil War, including the parts about her family’s slaves. Which they owned in some numbers, apparently. That makes me all kinds of uncomfortable.

**Talk about official state religions is a great time to use the “Muslim Test.” When conservative Christian politicians try to draft legislation to let prayers be said over a loudspeaker at a public school sportsball game or something like that, just see how they would respond to their own idea if it were in the form of Muslim prayer. As an outsider, I don’t see much of a difference between the idea of living in an officially Christian nation or an officially Muslim nation, but the sorts of people who draft this kind of legislation tend to see a huge difference.



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