Gender and The Military

I personally do not know anyone that has been in the military recently, but I am aware that there are definite gender biases that are prevalent. Women and gay men are often turned away from joining the military or can even be discharged. This article, "Sexuality, Gender, and the US Military," by Melissa Trible discusses these issues. She points out how unfair and illogical it is to discharge men for being gay when they are fully capable of being soldiers and they need all of the people they can get. It was interesting that the military is alright with homosexual soldiers as long as they don't know about it, so they are more comfortable with someone that covers up and lies about a big chunk of their lives but the people that are true to themselves are kicked up.  Its something that limits the military and even though they say it is for unit cohesion, there will be less people to even fill units. It is also wrong to discharge someone based on their sexual preference. They also are not as comfortable with having women in the military and women are usually in non-combat positions. There is the physical differences in men and women that make less women be able to be soldiers, but there are still plenty that could stand up to the physical task. The article brings up having an all female unit in which they all are physically fit but having them all together takes out the sexual interest that affects the "unit cohesion." I think that splitting up males and females is not going to help the stigma of females in the military and I think they just need to get used to both together. It is something that is rare so it seems weird, but the more exposure I think that it would be less of an issue.

There are also differences with how military wives and husbands are portrayed. I don't think I have heard much of military husbands honestly, but military wives are always talked about. They are usually the doting wives that are strong enough to take care of their own families when their husbands leave. Another thing is that in the media, female soldiers are seen more as the caring figures while the male soldiers are emotionless and strong. There are some strong females soldiers in the media, but they usually have more emotions or represented as more emotional. The military is definitely gendered and I think that there should definitely be a change in that.