Pursuant to one of the themes of The Watch, the one that first drew me to it, I wanted to recommend a book that might be of great interest to Watch fans about the emotional experience of women living within military culture, integrating a warrior identity into civilian and family life, and the unbelievable fucked-upedness (which is a word now) that my country’s military has a bizarrely hard time getting past, and one of my most emotional political buttons.
Shoot Like a Girl: One Woman’s Dramatic Fight in Afghanistan and on the Home Front by Mary Jennings Hegar is not only about her experiences in all of the aforementioned arenas but is also a manifesto of her life’s work, a shared political hot button for me: FULLY acknowledging that women in the military ALREADY experience combat, risk life and limb, and have otherwise already been equal participants as combatants in all but name in the U.S. military. Virtually no developed nation but mine continues to draw lines on the basis of gender regarding women’s participation in the military, and Jennings’ book addresses not only the philosophical problems of this issue, but how disastrously it affects a military woman’s career trajectory and self image in ways that even our civilian workplace has moved past.
A shameless plug to all my fellow ladies and gentlemen of The Watch!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015X7GRAG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
I will add this to my list. Thank you.
This looks like a great read! I’ll add it to my list. Thank you!!