Women and War
This month we’ve seen a strange confluence of developments, anniversaries, and events bringing the subject of “women and war” to the editorial pages of national newspapers and to the fore of the public consciousness. Last week, the US Senate Armed Services Committee included a Selective Service registration requirement for women in its version of the NDAA, making it likely that after a century of pursing freedom and equality—oftentimes in terms of a right to ownership over one’s own body—women might finally have an equal shot at indentured servitude. At Scripps College in Claremont, California, some students and faculty protested the choice of Madeleine Albright, first female Secretary of State, as their commencement speaker. This is all happening against the backdrop of Hillary Clinton’s second presidential run and the media hype surrounding the possibility of electing “our” first female president and thus “our” first female Commander-in-Chief. Earlier this month, Camille Paglia caused quite a stir when she wrote over at Salon that Clinton has “skimmed along in her bouncing gender bubble, virtually untouched…Far from Hillary…having a harder time as a woman candidate, she has been habitually shielded by her gender.” For writing that, Madeleine Albright would surely condemn Paglia to that “special place in hell” reserved for women who do not help each other!
And speaking of heaven and hell, this past Friday (May 13) was the 100th anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin Mary to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, during World War I (if you count the apparition in 1917 as the first). Our Lady of Fatima said: “Do not be afraid. I will not harm you…I am from heaven….pray the rosary every day to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war.” Americans celebrate Mother’s Day in May, but for Catholics this takes on double significance, as the whole month of May is considered the month of Mary, our Divine Mother. Since 1999, May has also been designated Military Appreciation Month. By looking more closely at the Scripps College protests, I hope to show how all of these things are related, and to remind readers, especially female readers, that we are, in the words of Catholic monk Thomas Merton,“living in a time of ultimate decision.”
The Scripps College Controversy about her inspiration for Mother’s Day and she never once acknowledged Julia Ward Howe. Antolini writes: “Jarvis replaced a Mother’s Day observance originally designated as a vehicle for social action with a Mother’s Day that exclusively venerated a mother’s private service to her family” (41). Hence, the original connection with peacemaking was lost.
Then, after the United States joined World War I, Holy Mother State saw an opportunity! The “public dynamic of maternal identity” was once again embraced and acknowledged on Mother’s Day, but only insofar as it was connected with — you guessed it — war! Antonlini writes:
“In his fourth official Mother’s Day Proclamation, Wilson asked for special attention to the patriotic sacrifices of American mothers selflessly offering their sons to fight and die in the defense of liberty and justice…Women’s groups promoted a day of international prayer to ask God to grant mothers the ‘Spartan heart’ required to send their sons to war…Following the centuries old tradition of nations mobilizing for war, motherhood was drafted into service during World War I, but this time with the help of the new holiday…On the big screen mothers who nurtured a sense of duty and honor in their sons, thus inspiring them to fight for her and their home, were the heroines. In contrast, mothers who smothered their sons, raising a generation of cowards, were the epitome of villainy” (97,99).
In fact, Anna Jarvis had a 20 year battle with the American War Mothers, an exclusive social club and political organization that would accept into their special circle only women with “blood ties” to sons and daughters who had served in World War I; in return they demanded a say in political affairs, a seat at the table. When in 1925 Jarvis crashed the AWM national convention in Philadelphia, she almost got arrested for disorderly conduct! Jarvis wasn’t necessarily antiwar, but she thought AWM tried to make Mother’s Day about their own special club, elevating certain mothers above others, when it was meant to glorify all mothers equally. Jarvis thought “every mother who dedicated herself to the preservation of the home, who quietly and unobtrusively attended the daily needs of her family, was a patriot in service to her country” and “patriotic tributes were not reserved only for mothers of heroes and martyrs” (113).
Who “Run” the World?
There used to be a quaint little feminist notion that if women ran the world there would be no more war. But does anyone honestly think, after Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice, that electing Killary Clinton as the first female President of the United States will bring new hope for peace, by virtue of the fact that she is a woman? Clinton represents, to me, the triumph of second wave feminism. If first wave feminism was about legal and political equality (a woman should be able to sign contracts, own land, vote), then second wave feminism was more about a Machiavellian quest for power merely for power’s sake, and the belief that in order to obtain power, women needed to become more like men, just like men. The symbol of second wave feminism in my mind is that relic of fashion: the shoulder pads. As women moved more and more into the public sphere, they felt they had to stamp out feminine qualities, and perhaps abandon traditionally female concerns, which were now seen as liabilities, weaknesses rather than strengths. No one wants to be seen as irrational, or worse too “sensitive.” Could those kinds of women ever become Secretary of State?
Perhaps it was a naive notion to think that women were nobler, superior creatures, not prone as man is to original sin, somehow uniquely able to resist the temptation of having power over all of the kingdoms of the world. And there is also something rather unfair about singling out individual women and saying that they do or do not represent and uphold what it means to be A WOMAN. Yet, I do believe that women are different than men. I believe that those differences are extremely important, especially at this time in history, and I find hope in the words of Pope Paul VI from one of his Discourses: “Within Christianity, more than in any other religion, and since its very beginning, women have had a special dignity, of which the New Testament shows us many important aspects…it is evident that women are meant to form part of the living and working structure of Christianity in so prominent a manner that perhaps not all their potentialities have yet been made clear.” And it gives me hope that there are young women like Kinzie Mabon, who haven’t fallen prey to our government’s pervasive and persistent propaganda, who wish to admire and emulate women who represent something more, something other than the “equal” ability to wield U.S. state power and participate in its violence.
It seems to me women, especially American women, have an urgent choice to make: patriot or matriot? This choice can be aided by the selection of good female role models. For Catholic women, the role model is clear: Mary, Queen of Heaven, Queen of Peace, Our Lady of the Rosary, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Mercy; yet there seem to be structural protections in place to ensure that the ancient rivalry for the Christian mind and heart, between Holy Mother Church and Holy Mother State, does not surface in our consciousness and stir up trouble. Yet I do not think the rivalry can stay hidden for too much longer, nor the choice indefinitely put off (and by Holy Mother Church I do not mean the current church hierarchy of bishops and pope but the Mystical Body of Christ). But I will have to deal with all of that at another time. This essay is already too long.
For now, it suffices to say that I do not look forward to the election of “our” first female president with anticipation and excitement. I can only imagine what a spectacle the inaugural ball will be. I imagine Beyonce performing her song “Run the World (Girls)” and Clinton clapping along, ecstatically. Will there be some of that sexy police state imagery that keeps popping up in all of the music videos? (I just love that charming moment at the end of Beyonce’s girls-run-the-world video when the scantily clad women, who have been dancing and putting on defiant airs, suddenly salute the militaristic men in riot gear.) At the ball, “our” new President will probably bring out Capt. Kristen Griest, the military’s first female infantry officer, for caresses and applause, followed by a slew of breastfeeding Army moms, as a demonstration of progress. Will there be a dedication to “Maya,” you know, the super-secret woman who hunted down Osama Bin Laden and was played by Jessica Chastain in the super-true-to-life film Zero Dark Thirty? This would actually be oddly appropriate: A collective salute to the faceless, anonymous workers in the irrelevant agencies that run our world.
I do not look forward to the day when, under “our” first female Commander-in-Chief, Congress passes a law requiring bright young women like recent Scripps College graduates Kinzie Mabon, Jennie Xu, Grace Dahlstrom, and Meagan McIntyre, to register for the draft, and then the day when I have to watch “our” first female Commander-in-Chief careen us into World War III. Not to worry, though, ladies, because the U.S. military will freeze your eggs for you so that you don’t have to listen to your biological clock ticking while you’re overseas blowing up hospitals. And if an IED destroys your ovaries, girlfriends, no worries: your eggs will be waiting for you when you return—-maybe in a wheelchair or with a brain injury, granted, but all ready for motherhood nonetheless! And if you get raped by your fellow soldiers and have to make some “hard choices”, the military will cover your abortions. Yes, women really can have it all. But to avoid that inconvenience, isn’t it best you take some preventative measures? The government will give you free birth control if you get drafted. Actually, it’s required. Would you like something implanted in your uterus or in your arm? Ladies’ choice. And if you show up with a child when you are supposed to be deployed, because there is no one else to look after it, the government will finally give you the second wave feminism dream of free babysitting: The child will be safe in foster care until you are allowed to come home. And if you don’t show up for deployment because you have nobody to look after your child, the child will be safe in foster care while you are in jail. And if you refuse to register for the draft, you will be thrown into a “mental rehabilitation center” where you will be forced to watch Beyonce videos all day long for the rest of your lives. But on the upside, you might finally learn all of the moves to “Single Ladies.”
Under a female Clinton presidency, surely war, and all acts of war, will be “safe, legal, and rare,” and best of all, women will finally have equal opportunity to participate in it, and not just in the background by making babies, er, sorry, fetuses, as if our wombs were simply one more machine on the assembly line of the military industrial complex, but on the front lines, where we too can have the power, the glory. Just remember when you are deployed: there is a special place in hell reserved for women who do not help each other, but this only applies to women from the same country. As for other women, you can bomb them, their husbands, their children, their fathers, their mothers, their brothers, and their little dog Toto too. Don’t be so sensitive! It’ll all be totes “worth it.” Maybe President Clinton will increase the number of innocent civilians allowed to be killed by a drone strike from 10 to 20. Anything can happen! The potentialities are limitless. Who knows, under a female American president, Beyonce might even get inspired to start conjugating her three-letter verbs.
Works Cited
Antolini, Katharine Lane. Memorializing Motherhood: Anna Jarvis and the Struggle for Mother’s Day. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2014. Print.
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