Gender Steretotypes Mess With The Military
As we celebrate Veterans Day, let’s talk about gender and the military.
As we celebrate Veterans Day this weekend, there is an opportunity not just to honor the men and women who have served, but to add to the national conversation about sexual harassment that’s sweeping the nation. Issues pertaining to military veterans and sexual harassment both suffer from a public perception problem, and sometimes they intertwine.
Perceptions of Gender in the Military
I recently participated in a workshop where the group leader asked participants to draw a picture of a veteran. Not surprisingly, most people in the room drew a white male who appeared homeless. None of the participants drew a woman, or a successful entrepreneur.
Recent studies show that perceptions about both gender and military service begin in childhood. Children are constantly observing their environments, and they learn what is important by watching their parents and those around them. Without even thinking, most of us identify people by their gender; “ask the lady,” or “you’re a good boy.” As noted by Rebecca Bigler, a psychologist and women’s and gender studies researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, “kids [learn] that gender is really important — because otherwise, why do you label it hundreds of times a day?”
Even more importantly, however, is that children begin to draw inferences from those observations. Using veterans as an example, children may observe that most pop-culture depictions of veterans are men, and that therefore, men must be more competent soldiers. Although this is starting to change, for example, this year, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America launched a national campaign to improve services for women veterans, including changing the pronoun in VA’s motto, which currently reads “he who borne the battle,” and, established veterans service organizations such as The American Legion and Disabled American Veterans both have women as National Commanders for the first time in history, there is still a long way to go.
How Military Culture Often Turns Sexual Stereotypes into Harassment
As is emerging in Hollywood, Washington, D.C., and all across the country, sexual harassment is not a problem that’s unique to the military or to female veterans.
Although I am not a veteran, (and the fact that my husband is, to some degree, perpetuates the gender stereotypes that I am discussing), in my own experience, as a female who works in veterans policy, I have experienced a fair amount of sexual harassment as a result of working in an environment dominated by the “macho” male culture of the US military. It may not be as “glamorous” as what’s happened in Hollywood, but it is nonetheless real, and it is one of many problems that needs to be addressed culturally at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
For example, one of the projects I am currently working on involves advocating for the end of tax-payer funded experiments on dogs at the VA, in conjunction with the White Coat Waste Project, a bipartisan organization that aims to cut wasteful government spending. As a veterans’ advocate and the owner of two rescued Dobermans, this is an issue I feel very personally invested in.
Yet, from the beginning of my work, gender stereotypes complicated my ability to conduct effective advocacy. Officials within the VA initially dismissed this as an animal welfare issue, and it was assigned less importance through a series of stereotypes and presumptions. VA’s thought process presumably went something like this: animal-welfare activists are often women, whereas successful scientific researchers are often men, and most veterans are men (see, e.g., the agency’s motto, mentioned above). Therefore, we care about protecting our (stereotypically male) scientific researchers who presumably help veterans (also stereotypically male), and how animal welfare activists (who are stereotypically female) feel about the use of tax-payer funded animal research doesn’t matter.
Of course, none of these stereotypes are true, but their existence is fairly obvious in interactions that I, other stakeholders, and VA had around this issue. Take VA’s Press Secretary, (a male veteran) for example. This individual took several veterans service organization representatives out to lunch, during which he dismissed my work as immaterial, describing me to colleagues as “just a hot chick with a dog.” Despite the fact that I once held a position more senior to this person at the U.S. House of Representatives Veterans’ Affairs Committee, he was quick to dismiss my intellectual and policy-based arguments and insist that any progress I’d made was due to my physical appearance, not the voracity of my arguments. (Also, for the record, I have TWO dogs).
Similarly, while some military and VA officials, like the one described above, often dismiss women such as myself as “crazy dog ladies,” they are quick to point out, in the context of service dogs, that they are “man’s best friend.”
These attitudes have effects beyond office environments. Although not all veterans suffer from mental health issues that can lead to dire consequences like homelessness, for those that do, the problems are often magnified for female veterans. A recent report by the VA on veterans suicide highlighted that female veterans have a 250% higher risk than civilian women for suicide. To this end, a sizable percentage of female veterans struggle with mental health issues, often due to the culture around military sexual trauma, with many stating that they did not report it due to fear of retaliation.
Whether we like it or not, gender stereotypes impact nearly everything we do, from how our career choices to how our relationship with our pets are perceived. On the bright side, negative stereotypes often increase an individual’s desire for social change. Accordingly, this Veterans Day, if thank someone for their service, do so because you are grateful for their sacrifice, not simply because they are a man or woman.
