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

It is apparent that the letters which comprise, as an example, the word “soldier” (the signifier) and our mental image of men at Omaha Beach or as infantrymen or IED victims in Iraq (the signified), represent a “signifying economy” which cannot accommodate the feminine. In the big picture, exclusion of the feminine from the very notion of combat preserves a view of feminine gender identity crucial to the preservation of a very particular definition of masculinity, since they only exist precisely because they mutually exist, and contrast.

Masculinity and Exclusion of Women, Gay Men, and Lesbians

The importance of idealized conceptions of masculinity is integral to two remaining forms of exclusion in the military: restrictions upon women and restrictions upon gay men and lesbians. As discussed previously, women as a sexed and corporeal representation of the feminine are excluded from some combat roles precisely in order to preserve American notions of femininity and masculinity. According to military policy, gay men and lesbians are excluded ostensibly because their sexual orientation will somehow be a threat to “good order and discipline.” Despite changing views regarding the validity of exclusion of homosexuals, I believe it is the stereotype of the gay man as a feminized man which threatens the military representation of American masculinity. Active-duty military men, for example, openly discuss the “shower problem” whereby they would feel uncomfortable showering with men whom they knew to be gay. Behind this trepidation seems to be a premise that heterosexual men who imagine themselves being viewed as sexual objects by gay men are relegated to the position of the women whom heterosexual men objectify, thereby feminizing the heterosexual man. Such feminization of a straight man as a sex object is a threat to the masculine gender identity defined by the very institution in which the straight man participates.