In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

9 Biology, Sex, and the Family When civilians with unformed opinions about women in the military first begin to think about the subject, they often begin with biology. They question women's capacity, their fitness and strength; they ponder the meaning of sex between soldiers; and they reflect upon military families -particularly those in which mothers and wives wear uniforms. Fitness is a concern both at the time of enlistment and during service. Establishing physical standards for enlistment has proven relatively easy and noncontroversial; establishing and, especially, enforcing standards for continuing service have been more problematic. Physical strength has become an issue only recently as women have (1) moved into jobs that require heavy work and into previously all-male units, and (2) become a significant proportion of the personnel in particular units and specialties. Sex, on the other hand, has always permeated the atmosphere of enlisted life. This is partly because so many enlistees are young single men away from home, surrounded by peers, and with little access to marriageable women. Thus, talk about sex and the pursuit of it are rampant, both at home and abroad.l The military endeavors to some extent to make sex safe: at Camp Casey in Korea, for example, a billboard at the exit gate lists the ten houses of prostitution with the highest venereal disease rate for the last reporting period. But no official and ongoing responsibility is assumed for the local women with whom enlisted men consort. The sex life of the enlisted women is quite a different matter. Traditionally the women's corps insisted upon a ladylike or an asexual image in order to counter the rumors and stories associated with women who associated with military men. Further, any woman who became pregnant was discharged. When the services were integrated in the 1970s, and when pregnancy was no longer grounds for the involuntary discharge of even unmarried women, it became harder for the military to maintain what was, in fact, a double standard. Further, maternal responsibilities, Copyrighted Material - 193 194 - Meta-Influences on Policies which the military could ignore when mothers were only civilians associated with military men, could no longer be ignored when the mothers themselves wore a uniform. "Family" is also a prominent theme in military conversation. The context is different from that of "sex," though; indeed, it invokes near reverence , for the protection of the family justifies the military's existence. In addition, the services' guarantee that families will be taken care of is essential to getting soldiers to take risks; they have to be confident that by offering protection to the nation they are not endangering their own families. The importance of families to the military is demonstrated by DOD expenditures of $10 billion a year on family programs. It was symbolized by placing a day-care center in the Pentagon and by the introductions made at an Army War College Seminar, where officer participants introduced themselves to guests not by rank, specialty, or even academic training, but by name, wife's name, and childrens' names and ages.2 FITNESS Lack of fitness has not been described as a major barrier to women's enlistment as compared with men's, nor has it been a major reason for women's discharge from the service. Still, military service is selective. Some 22 percent of youths are automatically excluded on the basis of their AFQT scores or for failure to meet educational standards; if another 15 percent are excluded for failure to meet physical standards (usually for being overweight), * and if still others fail to meet moral standards, the pool for enlistments may be composed of as little as 60 percent of young people. (Both physical and mental standards can be reduced in time of emergency. It has been U.S. policy, however, to have a single enlistment standard at any particular time, the myth being that every member of the military is available for "worldwide assignment.") Today, women's entrance physicals routinely include gender-specific *A 1985 DOD study found that the rigorous fitness standards developed by the separate services in the 1980s had resulted in height/weight standards that made 96 percent of men between sixteen and twenty-four eligible to enlist, but only 74 percent of women. It recommended that men's standards be tightened and women's loosened so that only 7.3 percent of women (and 5.8 percent of men) would be defined as overweight. The Air Force modified its standards in...

Share