Camouflage Isn't Only for Combat: Gender, Sexuality, and Women in the Military

1. Introduction

1 1 1 1 1 INTRODUCTION I was ashamed to admit that I’d been in the service because I knew what the assumptions about my character would be. There was certainly no pride felt in my family about my service. There was grief when I went in, and I think some embarrassment. “Nice” girls didn’t join the Army. —Major, Army, heterosexual Since the 1940s, when women began to enter the military in significant numbers, questions have been raised about their intent, their ability, and, perhaps most frequently, their character . It was believed that a woman who would place herself in an environment that was both numerically and ideologically “male” must either be looking for a husband or for multiple sexual partners or must wish that she were, in fact, male. But, while the focus on the military may have been new, questions about women’s participation in domains previously defined as male were not. When women first sought to attend 1 college, it was widely believed that education might damage a woman’s reproductive system. When women sought to participate in sport, similar fears were expressed. In addition, as with the military, concern was voiced about what kind of women might want to participate in such activities in the first place. When women seek to enter male domains, they are often confronted by societal expectations concerning what constitutes a “real woman.” Surely a “real woman” doesn’t want to carry a weapon, sleep in a foxhole, or go for weeks without a shower. A “real woman” doesn’t want to do “men things.” Sociocultural notions of what constitutes femininity and masculinity are used to insure that women who push the boundaries of gender are censured for such behaviors. While one mechanism is the threat that they are somehow less than “real women,” another is the threat of labeling them “lesbian.” A “real woman” does not do that most manly of “men things,” sleep with women. Gender and sexuality are intertwined in such a way that notions of appropriateness in one are used to reinforce the other. Many women who have entered the military have done so with the disapproval of friends and family. While this is certainly not the case for all women, and is less the case today, the perception that women who would enter the military were not “nice girls” was at one time quite widespread. In 1942, shortly before the establishment of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, civilian and military personnel alike expressed concern over the type of women who might join such an organization. Many believed that women who would be interested in the military would be either fierce, masculine 2 ■ INTRODUCTION women wishing to act like men or delicate, feminine women who, presumably, were unfit for such service. In response, Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby, chief of the women’s interests section of the War Department’s Bureau of Public Relations, said that the members of the proposed corps would be neither “Amazons rushing into battle” nor “butterflies fluttering free” (“Freedom of Press” 1942). Yet, it seemed impossible for the corps’s critics to imagine that reality might lay somewhere between these two extremes.1 The confusion over what women doing “men’s” work meant prompted a full-scale campaign to assure women, their families, and men, as well, that, “though the economy required that women assume male roles, don functional clothing , and engage in physically demanding dirty work . . . these new roles did not signify fundamental changes in the sexual orientation of women themselves or in their customary image as sex objects” (Honey 1984: 114). A memo from the Office of Emergency Management addressed these fears, as well: There is an unwholesomely large number of girls who refrain from even contemplating enlistment because of male opinion. An educative program needs to be done among the male population to overcome this problem. Men—both civilian and military personnel—should be specifically informed that it is fitting for girls to be in the service. This would call for copy . . . which shows that the services increase, rather than detract from, desirable feminine characteristics. (Honey 1984: 113) Interestingly, the military—or at least the folks who handle advertising for the Army—are aware that such conflicts about female and male roles continue and may affect recruiting. A INTRODUCTION ■ 3 recent recruiting advertisement shows a woman in front of a helicopter, wearing her flight helmet, lipstick...