Language and Gender in the Military: Honorifics, Narrative, and I ...

The concept of habitus melds with intertextuality in that training and instruction are largely textual in form—whether spoken or written. The military, then, together with its attendant intertextually created social norms, strictures, and mannerisms, is a common element of the habitus of over 26 million individuals, in the United States alone, who have experienced military training and instruction.

Inasmuch as military service plays a role in the habitus of a large contingent of the American population, the military is an important element of the national identity of the United States, even for those who have not served in the military. More specifically, the American military and the iconic soldier, sailor, and marine form an image and ideal of masculinity that pervades the American culture. Even currently, during the second war in Iraq, commentators refer to “bringing our boys home,” clearly framing the military as an endeavor of masculinity and youth and, consequently, rendering women’s participation in the conflict relatively invisible. This invisibility exists despite Department of Defense figures which show that at the start of 2007, nearly 24,000 women were deployed in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, composing 10 percent of the forces deployed. Of the women who have served in those operations, as of early July 2008, over one hundred have been killed (over 4,500 total deaths), and 600 have been wounded in action (of almost 32,000 total WIA). Further, in analyzing hostile actions, commentators commonly measure the dastardliness of attacks based upon the number of “women and children” who are harmed or killed. In such commentary, the women and children are presumed to be noncombatants or nonmilitary. Still, this phrase, regardless of women’s profession or position, relegates women to the same class as children; literally the protected, not the protector. Given this societal view, women’s presence and participation in military action is, to many observers, dissonant with the identity constructed for women in their relegation to the same category as children. Opponents of women in the military or women in combat make much of their opinion that Americans do not want to see women “coming home in body bags”—such imagery plays upon the traditional notion that women, like children, should be protected, not protecting, or that women should be subject to the authority of men, not asserting authority over them as a militarily high-ranking female.