A Woman Marine Speaks for Hillary
Women Marines are all dykes or sluts. So which one are you”?
I joined the Marines in the late 1980's. Pre Tailhook, Pre DADT. I joined for many reason, the main being that I wanted to serve my country. My original MOS was intelligence. I wanted to be an interrogator/translator and go to language school in Monterrey. I was told that they had just opened the intel field to women. In boot camp I discovered that I had been lied to and women could not specialize in interrogator translator, as it was considered combat related.
When I arrived at intel school I was called into the TOP’s office. The TOP is the highest ranking enlisted member in charge of a unit. He told me “Women don’t belong in the Marine Corps, they don’t belong in intel and I don’t want you here". Within about a month I had “failed” intel school. Now I certainly can’t say for sure that I was failed on purpose, but I was never allowed to see the tests I was claimed to have failed. I was once again called into the TOP’s office where I was given a “list of MOSs suitable for a woman”, and told to put them in the order I preferred. The options were admin, supply and cook, and I picked them in that order. A couple of weeks later I was told to pack up and head to Camp Johnson to cook school, because it was” the best place for a woman”. Now, I actually enjoyed being a cook and was a good one but I would have been damned good at intel.
Now let’s talk about sexual harassment. IT’s important to note that at that time there was a maximum of 5000 WM' s out of 198,000 Marines. I was greatly outnumbered. I cannot tell you the number of comments I received that were similar to the one at the top, which received on my way into an EClub one night. One Marine that I knew quite well wrote a song ,which he performed at clubs, with the line “WM” s are nasty Whores” as the chorus line.
As part of my job I often had to change out of my mess white top into a clean one. I had a t-shirt underneath and would change the outer jacket. I had to go to the back to a supply closet to do this and sign out the uniform with the SSgt in charge. Mind you he was 3 ranks above me. Most of the time I received comments like Nice tits or great rack. Eventually that was not enough and this SSgt came up from behind and grabbed my chest. I went up the chain of command and complained to the head of the mess hall. He laughed at me and told the other cooks, who then laughed to and threatened me.
Later that same SSgt tried to get into my 1st floor BEQ room by climbing in through my window. Luckily he could not get in, because if he had I may very well have been sexually assaulted like many women in the military have been. Eventually, after another woman complained about his he was “punished” by being transferred to another unit.
And then there was the time my SSgt, who was in charge of my actual watch, spotted me waiting at the bus stop. He offered me a ride to my boyfriend’s area. This location I was going to was a good 20 miles away across, deserted portions of the base. We got about halfway there, to the point where we were miles from anything and he pulled over. I was then told to either perform a sexual act, or get out of the van. I got out in the middle of nowhere late at night and started walking.
Once again I went to the Master Gunnery SSgt in charge. He yelled at me for breaking the chain of command despite the fact that the man who did that to me was in that same chain of command. He told me I’d better keep my mouth shut or he could end my career. Once again he told the other cooks who were pretty threatening to me.
These were the more egregious incidents. There were plenty of things that people simply though were funny, things like making me take off my gas mask in the gas chamber for twice as long as others, watching me choke and cough and me, knowing that if I lost my bearing I would be looked down upon by all of them. Or the time we were rappelling down a cliff , and the Marines on belay loosened their grip so that I bounced off the rocks, and arrived at the bottom with my face bloodied. Hilarious stuff.
I won’t even go into the things that were said when I got my HIV diagnosis while serving, but lets just say I deserved it because I was a WM and therefore a whore or slut, and that it was such great gossip that it made it overseas to my fellow Marines who were in Kuwait for Gulf War 1.
SO I know what it’s like to be a woman in male dominated system. I know what its like to feel like you have to be twice as good to get half the credit. I know what its like to be critiqued for hair, clothes, voice and makeup rather than for what you do or who you are. I know how a male dominated institution wants to put women in their place, to knock them down, to make them less than. I know how women are often turned into mere caricatures when they try to step into male dominated areas.
I know that what Hillary accomplished yesterday was a big deal. Politics aside, this was a huge step for women. I know that we have a long way to go still. I also know that Hillary is not perfect. I know that she has made mistakes. I know that she doesn’t tick every box, for everyone. But maybe, just maybe we should try to look at her through a lens that has not been tainted by sexism. Maybe then we will see that while she is not perfect, she is not a monster. Nor was I a whore or a slut or any of the other things I was called over the years.
I actually posted this a few days ago and then quickly deleted it because I thought I might get backlash for my post.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I can't even imagine what you must have gone through.
I was a tank crewman in the Army. 'A man's job for men', I guess. Tank crewmen are often caricatured as block-headed, booze-swilling gorillas. As a guy who likes Shakespeare, poetry, fine wine, and classical music, I got a lot of guff from the other guys. But nothing even remotely like what you went through.
A while back when the SecDef opened combat MOS's to women, some of these same guys posted the most awful, hateful, disgusting, and misogynistic filth on many of the Facebook pages dedicated to tanks and tankers. I tried to mitigate some of these, and stand up for the women who wanted to serve. I got called 'libtard' and a lot of other nasty things.
I hope things get better for women in the service soon.
The blockheads are just going to have to get used to having a female Commander-In-Chief.
I salute you. 
And welcome to DU! 
It's important to hear these stories. I'm glad you shared it with us!
