“I don’t know – I can’t help but think that if we reach the point where that is the only thing that distinguishes the lives of men and women citizens, it will be largely to the advantage of the women. After all, if in a future time men and women have equal authority in every part of life, but one group is expected to risk their lives in combat while the other is not, which one is privileged?”

The problem is that this would not privilege women, not with the current military structure. The US military *rewards* combat roles. It’s how you attain at the highest levels, and it’s how you get recognition. Because women aren’t theoretically supposed to be in combat, they get passed over for medals (just one part of things, of course), but this means they also get passed over for promotions.

We didn’t get a four-star female general until last November – almost 60 years *to the day* since women were admitted to the services formally.

[Ch 6] “Military Multiculturalism in the Gulf War and After, 1990-1999,” Melani McAlister, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, & U.S. Interests in the Middle East since 1945, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2005), pp. 235-65.

I looked it over this morning–it’s a good review of the media coverage of the war, which indeed included lots of “hey, women are now fully integrated in our fighting forces!” stories like the NYT article linked above, and also analyzes the celebration of the multicultural military in contemporary media reports. This chapter then goes on to analyze a few movies built around the Gulf War that appeared in the later 90s.

As to Indyanna’s point that the Whiggy in this case must be provisional until we see what happens after the wars (if there ever is a postwar period in the future…): I suppose I wasn’t just hitting on the whiggishness of the analysis of women’s role in combat, but speaking to the larger Whig history trend in which every war changes EVERYTHING for women in American history:

1. The American Revolution changed EVERYTHING because it showed that women were deserving of the privlileges of citizenship in a republic.

2. The Civil War changed EVERYTHING because of the valiant support on the home front and troop support (and among Southern women, on the front lines frequently) showed that women were equal to men in their sacrifice.

3. World War II changed EVERYTHING because women demonstrated that they could do industrial jobs that only men had done.

Etc. Yes, things have changed for women over the last 233 years, but not as much as the rest of the world has changed. Women are still expected to volunteer their labor, especially in times of crisis, and then they’re expected to retreat when their nation no longer needs them. Women never get anything for the better out of war–and while Harry Truman’s deseg of the army is a terrific example of the war changing things, it’s not an example of war changing anything for women. I won’t hold my breath that the military will desegregate in terms of sex and sexuality (as Notorious points out, an important corollary in desegregating the current military), for the reasons that Tanya points us too: none of our civilian “leaders” want to have that fight.

Barack Obama could presumably issue a Truman-like order to desegregate the military and to prohibit the dismissal of gay men and women–but he hasn’t, and my bet is that he won’t.

I don’t know – I can’t help but think that if we reach the point where that is the only thing that distinguishes the lives of men and women citizens, it will be largely to the advantage of the women. After all, if in a future time men and women have equal authority in every part of life, but one group is expected to risk their lives in combat while the other is not, which one is privileged?

Also, while the “Whiggish” view of history certainly has its problems, and is completely wrong in some areas, it isn’t completely wrong, either. There certainly seems to me like there has been a lot of progress over time – although it is often slow, uneven, and with periods of backsliding.

I personally love this quote from Colonel Mary Hallaren of the Women’s Army Corps – she said this back in 1947 when they were in the midst of debates for the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act:

“In the future, we won’t have to worry about recruiting the women or convincing the men. When the house is on fire, we don’t talk about a woman’s place in the home. And we don’t send her a gilt-edged invitation to help put the fire out. In the future, we shall be concerned with her utilization.”

Now, if we could just get to the point where we don’t need to convince the men….

And I’ll believe that discrimination based on gender (as opposed to biological sex) is over in the military when they start letting openly gay men and women in.

The postwar trajectory is definitely where to look for the key. Sometimes it’s where the actual change happens. After WWII, Truman used the executive authority of the commander in chief to make race-based changes in the military system that could never have been pushed through the Dixiecrat congress for the civilian society. The Army said hey, we’re not an agency designed for social experimentation, but that’s exactly what it became, and some of the results spilled or seeded over into the early years of the Civil Rights era.

None of this is to take too blithe a commentary tone, but I do think the potential for “evidence of…erasure” is the right place to keep the light shined on.