Response to Anu Bhagwati

Anu Bhagwati, executive director and co-founder of the Service Women’s Action Network, came to talk to our class before her evening lecture. I also had the opportunity to go out to dinner with her, Professor Wibben, and two fellow classmates. Anu’s visit was refreshing because she has a completely different take on women in the military than most other visitors we have had. She is pro-equality in the military, leading her to endorse policy such as equal standard fitness tests. I completely agree when Anu says that this patriarchy is preventing women from exceeding because they are held at a lower standard. Women in the military exist in this limbo where they cannot act too feminine or too masculine because they are ridiculed either way. There is no win. The pressure of this environment leads women to be ultra feminist or a misogynist, as Anu admitted to being at one point.

            Although Anu’s visit was refreshing, I found myself getting frustrated at times because her views were so pro-military and I cannot agree with this. I kept forgetting that she was still a willing participant and representation of the military. One comment that rather annoyed me was when she was explaining the job of female engagement teams. These women are not trained to have tea but rather to carry out a mission and determine when the next air strike should be. This completely shocked me because, again, I kept forgetting her positionality. It makes sense to think that this is a natural sentence to her, which it totally is, but I cannot get passed the thought that this method of attaining information violates the women at the other end. They are blatantly being used by the military; well I guess that is what is involved in war. So yeah, I guess my problem is not Anu but the existence of what she represents.