21st Century Perspectives on War: A Concept as Old as Time

Why is it that every advertisement, book, or article online generally portrays the life of an army member as a male? Are we still living in a society where females do not have rights? If this is the case then why are there females signed up for the military whose voices are just not being heard?

Take, for example, when we began this project and we had to subscribe to a military blog. I would say that at least ninety percent of the blogs that came up on my search engine were of males.  Is it is so wrong to want to get a females perspective on the war?

The most recent book we read in class was an autobiographical study of Vera Brittain during the First World War allowed us to see the visions of war through a female’s eyes.  Let’s compare her responsibilities to that of a male.  She worked in a hospital while the men were out on the front line in trenches fighting the war.  People during those times did not feel a woman could fight as well as a male so they were sequestered to “female” jobs.

Know let’s look at the two advertisements we watched in class on the marines and the army. While each advertisement at least had woman in them the ratio of males to females were not even close.  Also, if you compare the actions the females were doing in comparison to the males the males were also found holding guns, running through obstacles, or advancing their training.  While I felt the women were just there so they could have a female in the add.  Overall it’s great that the army and marines both used females in their advertisements.  I just hope that over time men and woman will begin to be on equal playing fields.

Christian Lowe sums it up perfectly in his blog From the Front.   In his second post he stated:

“There were, of course, the gaggles of civilian contractors…mechanics, technicians, security personnel with their huge forearms and the occasional female trying to wade through the sea of testosterone.”

Once again just proving that there are not nearly as many females fighting in the Iraq war as males while I am sure that rates of males that sign up are extremely higher then that of women.  However, I feel that advertisement and push for woman to sign up are not helping the cause.  In the same blog Christian Lowe also stated:

“But in these situations I like to try to pick out the “OGA”s — the acronym for “other government agencies.” I mean, who was the group of five lean, buzz cut, square jawed guys trying to fool with their matching black CamelBak Motherload backpacks, hiking boots and cargo pants. I dunno, FBI, DSS…CIA maybe? No matter how “incognito” we try to be, Americans are so obviously American when they travel it makes me chuckle sometimes. And these guys were no exception.”

After reading this passage he clearly uses the term guys twice, I don’t know much about the military however are females not allowed to be “OGA”s.  This is a question we need to ask ourselves are we still living in a world where females are being discriminated against or are the number of males and females that sign up for the army and marines dramatically different and if this is the case is it due to advertisement and stereotypes of females at war.  

Source:

From the Front Line: Christian Lowe

Military.com

28 February 2008