Although it received mixed reviews upon it's initial release in 1997, Ridley Scott's "GI Jane" starring Demi Moore and Viggo Mortensen stands uniquely on this day as a testiment to how just how far, and how suddenly, our armed forces have progressed.
Ridley Scott directed this flawed but involving study of Lt. Jordan O'Neil (Demi Moore), a Navy topographic analyst who is chosen as a test case for the presence of women in combat. Aware that she is making history and knowing that 60% of all male trainees will fail the rigorous training, Lt. O'Neil struggles to prove herself physically and mentally worthy of becoming a Navy SEAL. What she doesn't know is that she is being sold out by hardbitten Texas senator Lillian DeHaven (Anne Bancroft in an amusing turn), who is being blackmailed by the Defense Department with politically fatal base closings unless O'Neil fails the program.
In some ways the film "GI Jane" is a flawed gem. It documents our horrifically flaw political process, how the dynamics and power struggles between the powerful Pentagon and ambitious Senators can distort the process of ensuring equal rights for all.
It shows the blatant casual back-handed misogyny that women - in so many walks of life - face constantly.
Lt. O'Neill is faced with hostile and suspicious colleagues, false accusations of being gay during the height of "Don't Ask Don't Tell", and fairly graphic SERE Torture Resistance Training. If you really think about it and take it all in, we've come and very long, long way since all of that - but it's been a lightening quick change. Just two years ago DADT was still in effect. Just yesterday women were banned from combat service. How quickly things can change.
Here's the Full Movie.
Until today Women had been banned from participation in Combat, except for the fact that they haven't. Not really. Women have been active in combat zones and in combat roles for years. They just haven't been getting credit for it as shown last night on the Rachel Maddow show.
Any individual woman may or may not be able to accomplish a specific combat role, that should depend on the whether they - individually - meet the requirements, not based on their gender any more than it should be based on their gender identification.
All the straw-men arguments claiming that an injured woman in combat would be "too much" for the men around her to take have already been shown to be ridiculous and just plain false. The issue of women in are armed forces being subject to domestic violence and rape is a much larger problem.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
He hit me across the left side of my face … and my face hurt so bad. He screamed at me and he grabbed my arm and he raped me." Kori Cioca's heartbreaking account of her rape by a commanding officer while serving in the US Coast Guard is not the most shocking part of her testimony. Following the attack, Cioca was told by her superiors that if she went forward with her case she would be court-martialed for lying; her assailant, who admitted the attack but denied rape, then received just 30 days of base restriction and loss of pay and the US Department of Defense continues to refuse to pay for the surgery she needs for the nerve damage to her face.
Secratary Panetta has called the way the Military Handles this problem
an Outrage.
Perhaps if they realize that those women are just as armed and dangerous as they are, some of those men might think twice. Then again, perhaps simply giving women the full respect and credit they are due and deserve will do even more to fight misogyny than anything else ever could. The Secratary may be able to change the rules for the Military, but it will take much more time and concerted effort to change the culture.
Either way, today is a brand new day in America - and it's been a long, long time coming.
Vyan