While in college, Janis Karpinski still had an interest in the army, but had some doubts about it as well. She found an article about the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) and decided to get some more information about it. When the Army recruiter called her, she experienced something awkward and disappointing. When she answered her phone, “he said, “Oh, I should have paid more attention to your card. I thought I was going to be talking to a man.”(39) After that comment, Janis thought to herself in confusion, and asked the man on the phone, “You have women in the Army, don’t you” (39) and he answered yes.
Their conversation continued on a bit more, and towards the end he said, “he could make no promises that I would get accepted into ROTC there.” The issue with Janis not being able to get into the ROTC programs was not because she had no previous experience, it was because she was a female, and not many get into the ROTC. Because the Army recruiter mentioned that to Janis, she was gloomy and said, “Forget the Army, I thought at the time.”(39)
These comments and remarks that men say to women really do make some women have lack of confidence, and steer them away from something that they really want, because they think that they have no chance at all, and these criticizing observations can possibly ruin some dreams as well.
A similar result happened to Janis, she decided to go into teaching in college, and basically turn her back on the idea of going into the Army for a very long time. Although ever since Janis was a young girl she always wanted to be a soldier, this one thing that was said to her made her change her path in life that she was planning on going through with.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
It's sad how these men always make comments on a woman's ability, and it turns their confidents down. Since there are women serving in the army why can’t there be more? Funny thing is there are still those kinds of comments running around now days. Men still sometimes think women are incapable of doing certain jobs. In the first place I wanted to go to an auto body shop place for my internship because I wanted to learn hoe to fix cars, so if anything ever happened to my car I wouldn’t have to depend on a guy to fix little things for me. I decided to ask my dad because he has a friend that owns a shop and mi dad thought it was funny. He said” You’re a girl; you’re not suppose to work with cars. People will thing you’re crazy.” I flipped out on him. I said “Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I can’t learn to fix cars like a guy can.” I say all of this sexism needs to stop.
Post a Comment