Week Nine: Women Should Expect Sexual Assault in the Military

Current Event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZsAosKcgY4.

In February of last year a Fox News journalist (no one should be surprised that this comes off Fox by the way) by the name of Liz Trotta said that military women should expect sexual assault. She believes that women have no reason to be in the military. It is a man’s world. Women aren’t as strong and she believes that they are made into heroes by the press for a good story. She says that the military is a combat machine and women should not be in it. In this video, two journalists by the name of Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur, discuss these comments and what they think. There are some really great points too. They believe that women are not as strong as men also but that does not mean they should be making sandwiches in the kitchen. Another guy mentioned that a woman doesn’t need to be physically strong. They can press a trigger on a gun or press a button to launch a bomb too. Liz Trotta said that they should keep feminism out of the military. Someone mentioned that this is interesting because she takes advantage of feminism by having a job a woman would never have been able to have earlier. At the same time she fights feminism. The journalists are obviously frustrated.

This does expand our collective knowledge of feminism and the issue at hand because it is very important that we remember that there are women out there too who don’t believe in feminism. It is hard to believe. After all, they should know of the struggles we go through also. This also adds to our collective knowledge about women in the military, because it brings up some very important issues that both target women in the military. Not only that, but it also brings up some good points to support women in the military as well.

This piece fits in with this week because this week is all about sexism and women in the military. More importantly, it is also about sexual assault in the military. Liz Trotta is so willing to place the blame of the assault to the women. She is also coming from a very androcentric idea. She believes that men are meant to be in these positions because they have a penis. These journalists that are talking about her comments clearly do not agree. Androcentric ideas are pretty harmful when it comes to equal rights for women. It is affected how everyone thinks and we definitely don’t need that while we are trying to fight this huge fight. Another words, it fits in to both Women’s Studies and sexism in the military and who is supporting it.

It is obvious that Liz Trotta is part of the wheels of the cycle of oppression. Here is this woman that everyone is supposed to be looking up to and all she can talk about is how women are not equal to men. When she says this, some people are going to believe. They are going to believe her because she is in the media. In addition, she is in a position of power. This is going to either make people believe the way the journalists did and say “this is crap” and try to change these erroneous beliefs, or there are going to be people who believe and become sexist beyond belief. Trotta is a huge part of the cycles of oppression.

The new knowledge product for me is that there are women out there in the media who are willing to throw us under the bus. This is so strange. She knows what it is like to be a woman. Yet, she disregards this and says everything against it. It is so important to know that just as every person has potential to be an ally in your fight; that every person has the potential to be an enemy in your fight. In the cycle of oppression there is a part in which a person can try to change or there are those that just stay in that cycle. Women in the military are very worthy of holding whichever position they want and sexism should not be an issue. Yet, it still is.

I think that to be a woman in the military that you have to really want it. There is a lot of crap that women have to put up with. This shouldn’t be the way it is. We have unlimited potential and we all deserve to be empowered and to enjoy life to the fullest. Yet, we have these people telling us what our potential is. I was obviously very upset with Liz Trotta but in some ways I was irritated with the journalists. They said that women are not as strong as men but I believe they have the potential to be. Unlike what they said, I believe that women do not only have to have brainy jobs. Some women are built strong and we should not forget that. Ultimately, what it comes down to is that all these gender roles we are supposed to have, need to be useless. We are so much more than what is between our legs. In fact, if everyone believed this statement we might not have all the trouble we do now. Things need to change. More than anything the mental mindset.