Women In The Military Essay Research Paper

Women In The Military Essay, Research Paper

Equality for Women in the Military: A good idea.

Self~Pity

I never saw wild thing

Sorry for itself.

A small bird will fall frozen dead from a bough

Without ever having felt sorry for itself.

Chances are that some of have seen the movie GI Jane and have cheered along with Demi Moore.s character as she spit in the face of her commanding officer as he proceeded to beat her to a pulp to prove a point about womens. inferiority and how their presence can make the men weak. I was cheering with the best of them at the time, but now I.m not sure that if I saw it again, I.d be cheering with the same zeal.

When I first started to write this paper, I was drowning in my preconceived opinions about women.s involvement in the armed forces, but I currently find myself at a loss for a well-established, solid ground to stand on. I have explored the opposing viewpoints of this issue and I.m still torn. I have always had a great deal of respect for the armed forces and at one time even visited a recruiter. Sometimes I think that the dream still isn.t dead in me, especially since this past Thanksgiving.

This year, my family (my mother, my sister and I) decided to be a host family to two Great Lakes Naval Base Boot Camp members for the holiday. On Thanksgiving morning, my mother and I went to pick up our two .recruits.. I was so stuck in a cloud, dreaming of spending my holiday with tow muscle-bound hotties, that it never occurred to me what happened next. Two young ladies approached us and introduced themselves as Midshipman MacIntosh and Shipman McDonough. Recovering from the initial disappointment, I found myself, over the next few hours, greatly appreciating the fact that we were assigned women instead of men.

These two girls were more than eager to answer our numerous questions and share their experiences while proceeding to talk our ears off, gain our respect for them and in turn the U.S. Navy and also, to find a place in our hearts. It was definitely the most memorable Thanksgiving that we could.ve hoped for and have ever had. I don.t believe that any of this would be true if we had hosted young men instead.

Recorded history shows that women have served great purposes in the military since as early as World War I. In fact, women make up almost fourteen percent of its active force today. Myth has it that the first women to serve in combat were Margaret Cochran Corbin who loaded and fired the cannon herself until she was wounded by grapeshot, which tore her shoulder, mangled her chest and lacerated her jaw. The second was a woman by the name of Molly Pitcher, who fetched water and swabbed barrels for the Continental Artillery during the Revolutionary War. World War I brought on the establishment of the .yeomanettes., a 12,500 strong force of women who were recruited by the Navy and the Marine Corps to perform clerical jobs that would .free the men to fight.. This number, however, does not reflect the combined forces of these women and the many nurses that served. When that number is included, the total involvement swells to a whopping 34,000 in size!

In World War II, each of the armed forces found it necessary to establish its own female components. First came the Army with its Women.s Auxiliary Army Corps or the WAAC. The Navy followed with the WAVES: Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service, then the Marines, the Coast Guard and finally the Air Force which in 1941, created the (WASPs) or Women.s Air Service Pilots. These combined forces made up 350,000 female participants in World War II wartime activity.

There are many arguments for and against the involvement in the military that are up in arms to this very day. Of course the most obvious argument for womens. involvement would be the past performance that they have shown. In the book, .Women in the Marines. by N.R. Rowan, Drill Instructor Wayne Moore from Parris Island, SC, Marine Training Facility says, .I.ve been in the Marines for fourteen years, and I can tell you, the females listen up! They make better recruits overall than the males. They are better motivated, adapt better, take instruction better and seem to retain what they learn better. I.ve never had a female recruit refuse to jump off the 45-foot rappelling tower. So far three males have refused to jump..

In the same book however, the following fact is stated, .the average female recruit.s rifle test score is 200 compared to the average male recruit.s score of 212.. The passage goes on to explain that this is most likely caused by women.s and men.s physical differences. The test calls for the recruit to be in a lying-down position. Since women typically have shorter arms than men, while in a horizontal position, it is harder for them to maneuver their trigger finger. Another argument against the advancement of women in the military was made by Brian Mitchell, a decorated Navy intelligence agent, in his book .Women in the Military: Flirting with Disaster., when he stated that in Korea in 1976, when war was hours away, numerous requests were received from females asking to be transferred to the rear. When their requests weren.t responded to, many of the women simply abandoned their posts.

This kind of action caused the DOD (Department of Defense) to write the .Combat Exclusion Laws. which limit the ar