feminine-genius

Deconstruction continues apace

Spain ushered in a new government in 2004 (which it confirmed by election this March). There was never any doubt that Zapatero would shake things up.

IT'S AN image Spaniards will not soon forget: their new defence minister, reviewing trim, crisply uniformed soldiers, with her belly plump from seven months of pregnancy.

The appointment of Carme Chacon, 37, and with no military experience, is the boldest statement yet from a Socialist government that has made gender equality a priority.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the prime minister, who won re-election in March, unveiled a cabinet this week that not only includes the first female defence minister but also has nine women to eight men.

Pictures of Ms Chacon reviewing the soldiers ran on the front page of seven national newspapers the next day, and footage of the event dominated the television news.

Now, as those Spaniards (and the rest of the world, for that matter) second-guess themselves and ask why the pictures grate so intently, will they have the framework to understand why? Does it really matter whether a man or a woman heads the armed forces, and more importantly -- does it matter whether the person has any experience?

Well, second question first: what is the point of the military? Is it a force to safeguard the safety of its citizens? or is it a showcase for social experimentation? If there is no real enemy, then the latter answer will do, and the experiment will be broadcast to the world to show that we can tinker with all sorts of elements because the army simply doesn't matter. Of course, if there were legitimate threats to a nation, it wouldn't mess around with such things -- but inane thinking in the deconstruction crowd leads them to believe that they can alter reality if they close their eyes (and click their heels) and wish really really hard for a new world.

Now, can a woman lead the armed forces? In a word, no. Not effectively -- and especially one with no experience. The men who are called to lay down their lives, to charge into enemy gunfire, to be heroic for heroic ideals cannot do so if they do not respect their leaders. This is a documented fact.

The only way that a body of soldiers can do their job effectively is if a "warrior cult" is established, in which they lose the ego for the whole, they lose rational, independent thinking for the moment for the sake of docility to the mission. That cannot be done under these circumstances because the men will always second-guess the orders and calculate how to save their skins despite the games all around them. The bond of trust is impossible with an inexperienced woman at the helm.

Carme Chacon is lovely -- she reminds me a lot of Audrey Raines in the series 24 (but of course that was a series that showed that no matter how competent folks were in their duties, emotional entanglements were a disaster for national defense). Even without the impending delivery of her child, this stands as a mockery of the armed forces. With the child, it may just enrage the citizens of Spain to see once and for all what socialist deconstruction is all about.

Addendum: It should be noted that Zapatero is essentially a communist. He adopted socialism as a more practical application of his pet principles. The Marxist ideal at the heart of his thinking supports feminism as the next phase of the dialectic, which pits the oppressed (women) against the oppressive class (men) in order to arrive a new synthesis: androgyny. The peaceful application of this principle is Deconstruction by Fiat. This is a classic example.

Couldn't resist...

We'll show more focus closer to Holy Week, but for now ...

Obviously, dress parades are a far cry from real drills, but surely someone is joking by asking women to sashay down the road in these? Cannot recommend this book highly enough, if one wants to discover the way that integrating women into armed forces undermines them.

The trouble with women in uniform

Reasoned Audacity has done the heavy lifting again on what problems ensue when women are put into "gender blind" situations. This is not to indict the fine work of many women who have excelled in the military environment. The problem is that such exceptions make bad rules -- and to allow men and women (or those with same-sex attractions) to fraternise around the clock in awkward settings is to ask for trouble. National defense (or the hazards of fire fighting) are the wrong settings to play feminist games with quotas and equal opportunity.

Inadequate vocabulary

I have always argued that women, as icons of the Church, can do or be just about anything except a priest (he's an icon of the bridegroom) or a combat soldier (the Church is a sanctuary, and engaging in battle conflicts with that). Thus I have consistently written and argued against women in combat, despite the fact that they can physically or mentally handle the duty.

Here is an article from a lovely gentleman who argues his point using the chivalric code, and does a decent job of it. This sample alone though, shows that the vocabulary and premise he uses is so out of date and anachronistic that it cannot be used effectively with modern audiences:

First, and simply, I suggest that there is no manly virtue in causing or intentionally allowing the inherent beauty and charm of young womanhood to be grievously disfigured by physical and psychic wounds of war. ...

Let’s consider a question, unasked and unanswered in behalf of the American body politic by the predominantly male Congress that integrated all federal military academies in 1976: "By what high principle might honorable, kind and loving men encourage and enroll women in the armed forces to kill and be killed on their behalf?

What respectable criterion (if any) of national and personal manhood is expressed by men's dependence on women to confront and kill mortal enemies – for the protection, safety and comfort of able men at ease? Boys and girls, juveniles, depend on their mothers to guard and protect them; but we men?

Words like "manhood," "honorable," "comfort," "beauty and charm," "grievously disfigured," "guard and protect" are all red flags for women who hold patriarchy in contempt, and have long trucked with men as economic equals, fellow sexual players, and otherwise independent contractors. They're miserable, of course, but their hackles rise when anyone suggests they need protection, or that it would be a particular shame if they were disfigured or considered lacking in charm. 

I know exactly what Captain Miller means (and I was there on the premises of the Naval Academy watching the first class of women enter in 1976) but these arguments will never fly with folks under 30. Moreover, his noble efforts aren't sustained at the end, as he relies on "ancient moral principles" -- because these fall woefully short of explaining the essence of masculinity and femininity in light of the TOB.

This is a prime example of Protestant theology, though very well-meaning and sincere, which doesn't have the capacity to go deeper. That is precisely where the theology of the body comes in. When it comes to discussing the nuptial essence of creation, we find that anything less than a complete understanding of the relationship between bride and bridegroom (she to bear his life within her and nurture it, he to protect and provide to the point of giving up his life for her) will end up with aberrations that are outside of God's will.

Commemorating a tragedy

In Arizona this week, the citizens will commemorate the loss of Lori Piestewa, who was the first woman to die in combat in Iraq four years ago.

The last time Lori Piestewa visited Phoenix was in October 2000 when she attended a family reunion beneath Squaw Peak. This morning, her friends and family, comrades and admirers will gather beneath that same mountain, now named Piestewa Peak, to mark the fourth anniversary of her death while fighting in Iraq: March 23, 2003.

Piestewa, 23, a Hopi from Tuba City, was the first American woman to die in the war in Iraq and probably the first Native American woman to die in combat overseas for the U.S. Shortly after Piestewa's death, Gov. Janet Napolitano renamed the Phoenix landmark in her honor.

Piestewa's father, Terry, who saw combat in Vietnam, calls his daughter a warrior. He sees the mountain as more than just a monument to her. "It's named after Lori," he said, "but yet it stands for every vet that didn't get to come home, man or woman, no matter where they come from. We're all one people."

In her death, Spc. Lori Piestewa has become an icon for 21st-century America: a young woman of color, half Hispanic and half Native American, a single mom who joined the Army to make something of herself and to provide for her kids.

Piestewa died doing what soldiers do: defending her comrades and her country. She raced her Humvee through a firefight - twice - after rescuing her best friend, Jessica Lynch, and two other soldiers. On the second run, a rocket-propelled grenade found the Humvee and propelled it into another truck, killing the two soldiers and Piestewa's sergeant. Piestewa and Lynch were taken to an Iraqi hospital, where Piestewa died. Lynch's televised rescue nine days later was emblematic in itself: America's every daughter plucked out of the horrors of war.

No, folks, "every daughter" is not called to be a warrior -- we are called to nurture life, to be sanctuaries. I admire Lori's courage and sense of responsibility, but she was loyal to a call that should not have been issued. A nation that sends "every daughter" into combat is a nation that is sorely malformed in its thinking.

May she rest in peace. May her children grow strong in their grandparents' care. And may we come to our senses over allowing women to leave their children motherless for the sake of a call to bear arms. This is insanity.

Mommy's gone to war

If you can hack through the political posturing in this article, you can focus on the insanity that has gripped our society, where a 6' 6" hulk of a man can kiss his wife good-bye as she heads off to battle and turn around to go home to tackle the laundry. I know one cannot get caught up in stereotypes, but think for a minute on what we've done. This is the account of the soldier's sister-in-law, who is visiting:

Jim says it's good to keep a routine. The week of my visit, the holiday lights blink in the darkened Florida balm. Palm fronds brush against the plastic snowmen and wise men propped up in the cool night grass. At the kitchen table, my nieces dream up Christmas lists to e-mail to their mother, as if she will trudge out into the sands of Iraq and find a Wal-Mart.

Yes, I've lived that routine, and ticked off the months til my husband returned from the Mediterranean where he flew F-14's. One fights just to get up each morning and keep life on a normal keel. But when the mother's gone, the family's cultural stabiliser is also AWOL.

Jourdan is 10 and long-legged. My brother seems not to notice that she is wearing cocktail outfits to school. Jourdan is spending hours in front of the mirror, hypnotized by her own reflection as Hilary Duff and Kelly Clarkson channel messages to her at ear-shattering decibels.

Sure, many mothers stateside are sleeping at the switch, buying those same "cocktail outfits" and giggling over the makeup and jewelry on their pre-adolescent daughters. It's poor judgment, but this is different, in that the father is overwhelmed by his job and the household duties, and is leading a life of barely disciplined chaos and gratification -- doing anything to assuage the suffering and pass the months until mommy returns.

While the children are naturally concerned for her safety, the father has assured them that she will be fine.

When Angela received her orders for Iraq last spring, my brother boiled down the situation this way: "There are bad people over there trying to hurt Americans and Iraqis," he said. "Mommy has special gear that keeps her safe."

Now the article makes clear that she only joined up to get out of a food processing plant. She doesn't use "macho" language or even have strong feelings about the war effort. She's the classic professional, doing what she's paid to do and no doubt doing it admirably. No one will argue that women are second-class soldiers, but I will argue forever that 1. children need their mothers in their formative years, 2. the military cult requires an all-male force that can properly bond and live the mission, and 3. a man who allows his wife to go in harm's way while living a secure life is confused. Very confused. If he can't see that, someone else should have knocked it into him.

Since the war began I have read the U.S. casualty lists published in newspapers. When the photos of the dead are published in newspapers, I study the faces that are laid out like yearbook photos filling the pages of an endless year. Every picture has its own story but no future...When I see these photos, I imagine the knock on the door.

My brother never reads these lists. He never looks at the photos. Seeking out memorials is for those of us who live around the edges. Instead, Jim stands over his girls as they say their bedtime prayers, the same singsong prayers they have repeated since they could talk, about grandmas, papas, Todd their cat and baby Jesus, with one new addendum to their pajama pleadings. "Please keep Mama safe."

Angela was the one who could see the newly-applied make-up on her daughter in the photos they sent back and forth on the computer, which required her to express her concern. She also was the one to notice a lump on the child's forehead that needed to be checked by a pediatrician. She sees through a mother's eyes even from the other side of the world, but neither she nor her husband can see what women in combat is doing to the family.

Drafting women

The ever-alert Elaine Donnelly has raised some questions concerning Judge Robert and his political philosophy towards the selective service.

These constitutional principles will have great impact on issues of concern to civilians as well as the military. Examples include the constitutionality of women’s exemption from Selective Service registration, religious practices at military installations and the service academies, the law banning homosexuals from the military, and the Solomon Amendment—legislation that withholds federal funds from colleges that discriminate against military recruiters.

Of course specific questions are not allowed, but this is food for thought. Remember that "choice" as a slogan usually leads to "coercion" in the end.

I part with the Anchoress on this one

The Anchoress links to an inspiring story about a beauty queen who joined up, feeling she must do her part in the War on Terror. I enjoy the Anchoress' writings, but I must disagree on this one. Women are entirely capable of all the details that go into fighting a war, but they must not do it. They must make a conscious decision to forgo that choice, since authentic femininity would ask us to image the Holy Mother Church, each in our own unique, diverse, and motherly way. Of all that the Church offers in her imagery, the sanctuary is one of the most important. Women cannot fight wars and be God's sanctuaries at the same time. When necessary and duty calls, it is for the men to fight to protect what is good, and true, and beautiful -- to guard the hearth.

Women can support them in all sorts of ways, in a variety of jobs, even, but one cannot harbour and foster life while fighting. The more women fight, the more men will sit back and neglect their duty to protect.

For more on the thesis of women imaging the Church, see here and here.

For more on the folly of women in the military, see here and here.

Good soul, wrong choice. God bless her and keep her.

In love with the Kalashnikov

Kurdish women have taken up the defense of their region, and have found a real bonding experience with their fellow women in arms. So much so, they don't want to go back to their previous way of life:

One woman I became close to was Shaima Sami. When the Ba'ath party executed her father and brother, her mother joined the Peshmerga, as did her three daughters, including Shaima who was only fourteen. Now twenty one, she guards a roadblock at night while attending school in the day.

Incredibly beautiful and charismatic, she is always running around with her Kalashnikov pretending to shoot Saddam who is hiding in the bushes and singing revolutionary songs at the top of her voice. At night we shared a blanket while I taught her a few words of English under the brightest stars I have ever seen, which stretched right down to the horizon.

Asked whether they will ever return to their civilian lives and the conventional roles of Muslim women, the Peshmergas' answer is a resounding 'no' - they 'love the Kalashnikov and an outdoor life' too much. Even when the cause is gone, they will remain.

While the author rejoices in finding a new breed of Amazons, it would appear that they're more shell-shocked and deranged than enlightened by their experience with war. Singing and shooting imaginary bogey-men suggest that the experiment with death and destruction took its toll. Put the guns down and step away from the barracks. (Why do we ogle and cheer instead of offering help?)

Chivalry is hanging by a thread

Charmaine Yoest, who (among many other things) follows the military and their policies on women, terms the present situation as "boiling a frog." The heat is rising, and the unsuspecting amphibian has no idea that's he's about to perish. Good analogy -- as this article by Elaine Donnelly points out: women are, for all intents and purposes, in combat already. It's just a matter of semantics. Wrong and bad. For example:

The politically correct view is that training alone can prepare female soldiers for land combat alongside such men. According to General Schoomaker, “we have a moral responsibility to prepare those women that are serving in our armed forces…by providing them with the warrior skills and tasks that are required….” Improved training on how to evade or survive ambushes makes sense, but gender-normed “warrior ethos” training — an oxymoronic concept — cannot prove feminist illusions of interchangeable men and women in or near land combat.

The fluid dynamics of troops in the field and the interchangeable nature of supply and support make "combat" and "non-combat" references obsolete. Women in support roles take gunfire, and supply troops often get killed. Women are in combat now. Period.

Ultimately, though, everyone suffers -- esp. military readiness:

Recruiting is difficult, but forcing young women and mothers in or near land-combat units would degrade respect for women, and make it tougher to enlist male recruits that the Army needs now more than ever. If Army leaders are serious about its new recruiting campaign aimed at parents, they need to stop the sophistry and semantics, and take this issue seriously.

Lots more over at Center for Military Readiness