The Myth Of Winning

Yes, now women can prove their equality with men by joining them in combat. No more behind-the-lines sissy stuff. Congresswoman Pat Schroeder has won her long hard fight to "empower" us. And Defense Secretary Les Aspin has opened his arms and told us to come on in and fly combat planes. We babies have come a much longer way than Virginia Slims ever imagined. We can now drop bombs on civilian populations, and we can do it at a nice safe distance so we don't have to see the broken bodies and the dead children. All glamour and no mess. Move over, John Wayne and Tom Cruise, you can no longer count on being Top Gun. Suit up, Melanie Griffith, it's your turn to blow up a city.

And there's more. Today we attack by air but Aspin has already promised to get us on war ships. In no time we'll be storming beaches with the guys, and the gays of course, gunning down other guys and other gays, and who knows? Maybe even other girls. At the moment we're the only country on earth whose official army includes women in combat. (Israel tried it in the beginning but when they saw the rape and torture women endured when they were taken prisoner, they quickly abandoned it.) But what the hell, guerrilla warfare has always included women. So why not us? Let's really put the stamp of approval on violence and make it unanimous. Men, women, gays, kids. (After all, Iran and Iraq include kids. And if they do it, how wrong can it be?) One hundred percent of the population licensed to kill. How glorious!

But let's not call it killing. Let's call it "choice." Let's call it "economic equality." Let's call madness.

Choice and economic equality. Some of us have spent our lives dedicated to those beau-tiful words. Of course we thought "choice" meant the right of a woman not to have an un-wanted child in the first place. It was never intended to cover her right to kill a child once it was born.

And economic equality. Equal pay for equal work. Absolutely. But didn't it always matter to us what kind of work it was? Many of us feminists thought then we were talking about building bridges, performing brain surgery, being a film maker, an engineer, a CEO. We were forging ahead, making real dents in that glass ceiling, when, suddenly the battle switched to the battlefield.

We thought it was our goal to convince men not to fight. Then suddenly we were told our goal had changed. We too should fight, when we "choose" to, of course. "Not that we believe in violence," the proponents of women in combat proclaimed. We just want "economic equality." Translation: Men get paid more to kill and we want ours.

Thinking about this, a wave of nausea swept over me and I thought Congresswoman Pat Schroeder could help me get rid of it. I had supported her for president, and since she was against violence and at the same time for women in combat, I thought she might have a way of reconciling these two contradictory positions for me.

So I went to Washington and met with her. I knew that as a member of the Armed Services Committee, she had tried to cut our Defense budget and stop war from becoming mainstream. "So," I asked, "how do you make war less mainstream by increasing the number of combatants? Especially by 53%?" She smiled. "Do you know what inspired me to fight for women to fly combat planes?" She ex-plained, when she was a "little girl" she wanted to be a pilot and fly big commercial planes, but there was no opportunity in those days for a girl to learn this. Now, "for all of our daughters," thanks to the military, women will get their commercial training by flying combat.

So, thought I, first you blow up civilians, then you can work for American Airlines. That is, if you live. "Surely empowering women to kill and get killed is not the only way for them to become commercial pilots!", I pleaded. She called it a matter of "choice." And she agreed that women would soon fight in the trenches, in the alleys, everywhere men fight. And in the case of a draft? She didn't blink. "Of course women will be drafted along with men," she assured me. "What happens to choice then?" I asked. Her jaw set. To her, women in combat is a done deal.

I realized then how determined this effort is to sell universal combat to the American public. The fact that violence sanctioned by the government leads to greater street and domestic violence is being ignored. The image of women is being redefined at a dizzying pace. A de-gendering is occurring that we're only beginning to be conscious of. On TV and videotapes, in films and novels, violence to and from women is state of the art. Just a short time ago, we were forever cooking, cleaning and picking up after the kids. Now we're slashing, karate chopping and machine gunning. There must be a better way to get out of the house!

Whether in aprons or leather, women continue to dance to the tune of their image makers. Our natural, nurturing quality is rarely portrayed. On the contrary, it's looked upon with embarrassment. The fact that we, the mothers, daughters and sisters, who did not shoot, bomb or burn, are now licensed to do so will simply hasten its disappearance.

Let's not be conned into this "choice." And let's not indulge the corruption of that word. Ripping the arms and legs off children should not be a part of the choice agenda. Blowing young soldiers away should not be a metaphor for "economic equality." Distortion of language is not new. They called the MX the "Peace-keeper," remember? We didn't buy that then; let's not buy this now.

If a willingness to kill other women's children is equality, then equal is just not good enough. Let's stop following in failed footsteps. We know war does not work. It's time to take the lead and find alternative solutions to the world's problems. Combat is in the business of destroying life. Women are in the business of creating life. Let's not allow ourselves to be manipulated into the wrong business.

Lila Garrett is a television writer, producer, and director, and has won two EMMYs and the Writer's Guild Award.