Gender and the Military

                Yes, I do know someone who has been in and/or gone into the military. The people I know I have never been close with, so I don't know exactly how gender affected their military experience. The people I know are all young men and I would imagine that their gender, them being men, had an effect on their military experience. Knowing what I know about the military, I would have to think that them being men has made their military experience less awful. The military was designed for men only and the acceptance of having women in the military has been slow and still struggling. Women often report their experiences as more negative and the rate of military rape is very high (even though military rape affects both men and women, it does affect women more). The social dynamics of all male groups and co-ed groups are completely different, especially in the military where manliness and strength are praised, and that means that group cohesion would be affected. Also men and women are physically built different. As much as we don't want to admit it, men are physiologically different and are often stronger than women. Men and women are often psychologically different which leads them to react differently in certain situations. This means that there are fewer women than men that are physically and psychologically suited to take part in combat, but it does not mean that all or almost all women are unsuitable. For these, and other reasons, I expect that the young men I know that are in the military had an easier time than if they were women.

                The media and pop culture, in my opinion, portray male and female soldiers pretty similarly. Male and female soldiers are more often than not portrayed as strong and brave. But, the media has to do this. They have to portray all soldiers as strong and brave and fighting for a good cause, or else American citizens will start to question the military. If soldiers in media and pop culture were portrayed in a negative light, the ramifications on the military would be pretty bad. Military respect would probably drop and then recruitment would probably drop as well. Media and pop culture has to portray all soldiers regardless of gender as strong and brave if we want to continue to have a strongly respected military. However, while military women are portrayed as strong, they are often highly sexualized, with the women sometimes acting as a prize to be won by the male soldiers. A strong patriotic woman was viewed as sexy, and still is.