Newsflash: Female Marines engage with Afghan women

http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,790962291001_2049667,00.html

I stumbled upon this video on cnn.com and the video was actually produced by TIME magazine. It shows female marines who are part of the Female Engagement Team (FET) who engage with Afghan women and children in their homes to share hygiene products, health information, and just talk to them about their living situation. They also educate the women about cleanliness through washing their hands and teach them about food preparation. They educate about food because there is a high degree of malnourishment among the children in the population they engage with. They also ask the women about improvements that they envision for their neighborhood and ask about the security in the area. Not only did this video open my eyes to something I had never heard about before, but it also made me very emotional when I thought about the situation that both the female marines and the Afghan women are living in; both groups live in constant danger and have less freedom than their male counterparts.

The reason why these female marines have been designated to go out and speak with the Afghan women is because male marines are not allowed to speak with or even look at Afghan women. However, the male marines first need to make sure the area is safe and ask the male head of a household compound whether the female marines can talk with the women in the compound. Once the man gives permission, then the female marines can engage with the women. This can be very difficult to accomplish because many Afghan people do not trust the marines and they are not comfortable with the interactions. The marines also have to deal with the language barrier that exists, so adding a translator into the mix seems to just add one more link in this complicated chain.

Even though the female marines show an example of strong, independent women who work alongside men in a dangerous job, which is a strong contrast to the life of an Afghan woman, the female marines are still limited by gender barriers which separate them from the males in their battalion.

The female marines are given this specific job because it is something that only a woman can do (because of the fact that the men cannot talk to the Afghan women.) I think the women also project a more nurturing, approachable figure to the women and children compared to the male marines. It is also a job in the military that one might consider “safer” in order to protect the women because they do not participate in combat during these missions. They are also “protected” by the males in their battalion who go before them to make sure everything is safe before they engage with the Afghan women. The female marines commented in the video that they were selected to be in this program (based on their merits and ability to accomplish the task) and moved to this battalion after the male members had been training together for a couple years. So the women were thrown into this tight knit group of men and the women still feel separate from the men because of their circumstances. The women also perform a different job than the men generally, so the men may never fully accept the women as equals in the battalion. One female marine in the video says that the men see them as a liability. In some ways this system can be seen as a patriarchal system but in other ways it is not. One can say it is patriarchal because it gives power to the men who decide when and where the women will complete their missions and the men’s opinions seem to take precedent over the women’s opinions. One could also say it is not patriarchal because the women are given a separate task only because of the cultural requirement of it. However, this separation in duties still causes the women to be subjugated by the men based on the circumstances surrounding their duties.

Another way that the military is inherently patriarchal is the fact that it was originally comprised of only men. That comes from the ideology of protecting women because they are delicate, they need to take care of the children, and men are stronger and better at fighting. Should women be happy that they aren’t expected to fight in dangerous wars? Or should we be offended that we weren’t given the chance for a long time to show whether or not women are even able to fight. This is also paralleled by the seclusion and protection that Afghan women receive in their culture. Are they being protected and cared for or are they being denied opportunities?

Just like any other job in America, female marines who choose to have children will be treated differently from the men and those women who choose to not have children. Especially for such a physical, life-consuming job, pregnancy is obviously a huge barrier to working as a marine. According to the Marine Corps statement about pregnant servicewomen, female marines are allowed to be pregnant but efforts should be taken to “minimize the impact of pregnancy on operational readiness.” Pregnant marines are “non-deployable” and the document also emphasizes the woman’s responsibility to “plan her pregnancy to enable her to successfully balance the demands of family responsibilities and military obligations.” There are also rules requiring the mother to organize child-care for whenever she is working, including during deployment. (Department of the Navy).

Afghan women live very secluded, second class lives. Afghan culture regarding women seems very contradictory to an outsider from a western culture. Their customs regarding women’s dress and seclusion is supposedly for the purpose of maintaining honor but the men do not seem to honor their wives in a way that is consistent with my definition of honor which would be an elevation and privilege of women rather than a subjugation of them. The ways that Afghan men subjugate the women are illogical to a westerner. First of all, men are not allowed to look at a women unless they are the woman’s close relative like a father or brother. However, when the American female marines walk through the town, all of the men blatantly stare at them. The female marines obviously dress and act differently from Afghan women; in fact, the females marines seem more like men than women to Afghans probably because of how they dress and their freedom from constant male supervision. However, it is still clear that they are women and yet the Afghan men stare at them. Perhaps they just feel that because those women are American and do not live under the same standards, then those rules do not apply. In the article I found, one female marine mentions that Islam requires men and women to be equal and yet many families only educate their boys and not the girls. FET has made some efforts to try to set up schools for girls so that they can receive their education as well as the boys. One of the most upsetting parts of the video was when one female marine shared the story of eating dinner with an Afghan family as a way of making the men more comfortable with the marines and hopefully more receptive to what they had to say. Because they were guests, they were fed first with the men. After they ate, the Afghan women were allowed to eat the scraps left over which the female marine says broke her heart to see that she unknowingly contributed to the women going hungry. The women in FET pride themselves in their ability to set an example of a woman who is not confined to a house, who receives the medical attention she requires, and who works alongside men in a position of power (including holding a huge gun.)

Even though the female marines do not have equality within their battalion, by simply talking to the Afghan women and giving them simple help they are having an impact on these women’s lives. They are opening the eyes of Afghan men and women to a world of gender equality and helping women along the way, especially through healthcare. Unfortunately, this method of engagement does not have immediate, visible results. It is disheartening to the female marines who just want to make a difference but I think that their confidence and perseverance will help them continue their mission.

Works Cited

Afghanistan- Language, Culture, Customs, and Etiquette. http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/global-etiquette/afghanistan.html

Department of the Navy, Marine Corps Order 5000.12E, Marine Corps Policy Concerning Pregnancy and Parenthood. Dec. 8, 2004. http://www.brooksidepress.org/Products/Military_OBGYN/Library/MilitaryTexts/Instructions/Navy/MCO20500012E.pdf

Stence, Sgt. Jesse. Female engagement team Marines bridge gap between Western, Afghan culture. Mar. 12, 2011. http://www.marines.mil/unit/imef/Pages/WhereMindsMeetFETbridgesgapbetweenWestern,Afghanculture.aspx

TIME. Female Marines Race to Win Over Afghan Women. http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,790962291001_2049667,00.html (video).