Updated Relationships

By: Kathy Gerber
Published On: 10/2/2006 9:08:04 AM


Additional networks have been added to the Allen chart. Click on the image to view.

I joined the USMC in 1972.  In less than one hour of taking the oath of enlistment, I was physically harassed by a male recruit in Richmond as we waited to head out to the airport.  This was either at AFEES or the recruiting office; I don't remember which. In the larger scheme of things at that time, this was annoying, but not dangerous, and unfortunately not at all unusual.  It certainly did not rank among the "top 1000" of my personal traumas in life.  It is, however, memorable in its utter outrageousness.

Webb's 1979 comments on women in the military were far from the left.  They reflect what was middle-of-the-road military thinking in that era.  They are arguably well left of center for USMC thinking at the time.

Discrimination against women - and other minorities - was the rule of the day across society back in 1979.  Women drivers were still the butt of wisecracks.  We were still emerging from a period in which women had been restricted to only a handful of career options outside of the home. It is laudable that Jim Webb opened up numerous billets for women as Secretary of the Navy.

To target one person in such an anachronistic manner for political expediency is misleading and historically insulting as it inaccurately implies that such a tumultuous period in our history was otherwise idyllic for women.  I encourage the women who appeared in that ad to read up on the women's movement of the 70's and 80's.


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