I can kinda see where they’re coming from. I’m a Boatswains Mate in the Navy. If they were to change the name for any reason whatsoever, me and every other Boatswains Mate would flip our collective shit.
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Is “cannon fodder” neutral enough?
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Well, “swain” means a man who is a woman’s lover or admirer. A “boatswain” would be a man who loves his ship with the depth of feeling that he might have towards a woman. Ships have traditionally taken on feminine aspects; we call them “she” rather than “it,” etc. They’re both vessels, and so on. So, in a sense, as the bosun’s mate, you’re his wingman.
I don’t know how to cross- or de-gender “boatswain.” “Boatmistress?” “Boatlover?” “BoatBoo?”
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The point I was trying to make is that those names have pride and heritage behind them. Changing them for any reason is bound to piss people off not matter how good the reason is.
It’s not an invalid thing to be upset by.
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I didn’t mean to imply that that sense was archaic, just uncommon. Still and all, as base an activity as rifling through garbage or someone’s drawers is meant to be, a marine still carries a rifle, even when they don’t have a gun*, and we’re still in the ludicrous position of gunless marines being rifle-men (transitioning marines notwithstanding). An occasional confusion over context when refering to a rifler might be preferable to some.
And there’s still “rifleer”, which I feel is perfectly cromulent, but which I know others will reject because, while it’s a legal construction, it is an archaic one; a modern translation of Dumas’ classic might be titled The Three Musketers these days. Or, perhaps, by following the precedent of the Marines’ riflemen, The Three Musketmen.
*Note to insert a link to a Youtube video of the marines in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket singing about the relative importance of their rifles and guns, when I get back to my desktop machine.
Ah, here it is:
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well-- it certainly doesn’t help that one’s personal belongings are rifled through, while cards are riffled through
sounds good to me. Perhaps even boatsmistress.
‘Rifleman’ has a perfectly usable gender-neutral term available: ‘fusilier.’
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BoatBae!
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Are you sure you aren’t thinking of gender-neutral uniforms, rather than “transgender” uniforms? There are many, many hits discussing gender-neutral uniforms in the Navy and Marines (an initiative to more or less unify the designs in order to reduce the visible differences between men and women in these services).
The case for gender-netural uniforms is fairly clear, as the skirts, different hats, etc., that various services require women to wear on formal and semi-formal occasions are cringe-inducingly outdated to the modern eye, and one would imagine this is especially so for many of the women who chose to enlist. Doing your best to fit in and wishing to be treated equally, while your organization forces you to wear a skirt and other articles of clothing that make you stand out - even while you are “in uniform” - must be frustrating.
EDIT: Here’s a link to an article about gender-neutral uniforms in the Marines. Oops, sorry, that one was mostly about minor changes between skirt styles, but mentioned a more masculine coat design… maybe just switch to pants, geez. Here’s another article, from which:
The change comes after more than two years of tests and experiments that coincided with the Pentagon’s push for gender-neutral physical standards and job opportunities. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus last summer said his goal is a collection of uniforms that “don’t divide us as male or female, but rather unite us as sailors or Marines.”
My main takeaway from a brief dip into this topic is that the US military is constantly revising its uniform standards, regardless of gender issues. And it probably always will. That being the case, spending a little bit of effort as part of these ongoing revisions to determine how trans people fit into the military’s complex system of rules surrounding clothing is hardly surprising.
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No, I do know the difference. The whole issue of Trans service members was not something I had ever given any thought to, and I still don’t have any real opinions about the issue. I was forwarded some message traffic (which I am still looking for) specifically about job openings for a group to study uniform designs for transgender individuals. The person who sent it to me only included the message “forwarded without comment”.
I have read a lot of commentary about both gendered and gender neutral uniform policies. If it makes sense, I find it interesting, but I do not hold strong opinions about the subject. I have noted that in some cases, the male uniforms seemed somewhat timeless, while some of the female versions appeared to have been fashionable sometime in the past. But most of the commentary I have read on the subject has been pretty sympathetic towards the women involved, mostly taking the tone that it is sad that such uniforms have been inflicted upon them.
And I really did not ever intend to demean anyone who wants to serve. My comment was directed at spending priorities. Just as previous generations of Marines would sit on steamy Pacific Islands, going barefoot when their boots rotted off their feet, and were disgusted and bemused when headquarters would spare no expense to ship them crate after crate of fur hats or German phrase books, I remember sitting in a remote outpost, and being thrilled to find that the Corps had sent me a laptop. This was back when laptops were a big deal. Of course, when I unpacked it, I discovered that it was to only be used for sexual harassment training, using the installed course software. And no other use of the laptop was authorized. Not the we had seen, or were likely to see a female human being any time in the foreseeable future. But we could see the humor in the situation, because at that point we wanted a great many things, but our needs were mostly met. This is not the case today.
Anyway, thank you for your comment, and your views on the issue. MB
Well, I’m happy to read this because as I mentioned before, the military has always done things contrary to what soldiers think should be done.
So, the military had you complete a sexual harassment training and you thought this was not as important as having a taxpayer laptop to play with? Or were you unhappy that you even had to complete the program?
I don’t know how old you are, but my mother was a WWII veteran. As an army nurse, she was actually an officer. Not a WAC, but a regular army officer who was based in The Philippines and in Japan after the surrender. So women have been serving alongside their male counterparts for a minimum of 75 years, even in the steamy Pacific.
So, again, why do you and the marines with whom you communicate try to pass off bogus information about gender issues? Because from what you just posted, your issue with trans people just turned into issues with women in general.
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A good quote if you can get it, and you probably can’t, would be along the lines of
Finally, a battledress worthy of the name.
No, I am not saying that at all. I have never had any problem giving my people instruction on sexual harassment or similar topics. I was proactive about those policies in the military, and I continue to be so in civilian life. I guess I am just not able to articulate my point clearly. The laptop thing was infuriating because with all the message traffic and paperwork that my job entailed, the first time I ever got near a laptop, it was for a software course that we cycled everyone through in a couple of days, printed out our certificates, then never used the very expensive laptop again. It does not matter how important the course was, it was wasteful to spend thousands of dollars on such a potentially useful object that spent almost all of our deployment unused. It was not our first exposure to the course materials. The normal thing was to either certify one of the officers to teach the course, or to fly someone out and we would all sit in a tent and listen to the presentation. Often that happened in the rear bases, where we expected to have to go through a bunch of administrative stuff anyway.
I want to make it perfectly clear that I support any person who wants to serve in the military. I support measures that will help those people do their job effectively. I oppose discrimination, either overtly or unintentional. Absolutely.
I also oppose each branch of service independently spending tens of millions of dollars researching new camouflage patterns, while spending very frugally on life support equipment for aircraft. That does not mean that I hate camouflage. But there are a bunch of private companies doing the same research.
I admire your Mom for her sacrifice and service. My mother-in-law was also an Army Nurse. She served in China.
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I see this as non-trivial. Sure people could argue ‘why the fuck do you even care.’ Thing is… these are things that go in reports and official paperwork. Strip gender identification away and hind end ‘oh i’m not sexest but-’ rationalization from kicking in. IE this gives women a fairer playing field when up for review.
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Your mom was a badass for going out there.
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Okay, thanks for your explanation, and thank you for your service.
I do wonder about the email chain that some current and retired military personnel use to forward information that has been forwarded so many times that its provenance is highly questionable. It just seems that something is bizarrely off about the transgender uniform job posting. I hope you give those emails the same scrutiny that I know you use here at BBS.
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Fair enough. I really have searched for that message, with no results. I am sure that it was in some way related to the following working group- http://www.defense.gov/News-Article-View/Article/612640
When I got the message, it was not really part of one of those email chains where everyone adds an outraged comment to something that was probably fake anyway. It was literally just a DOD internal job posting. No snarky comments had been added, It was not confidential or anything like that, either.
A little OTS, but we recently watched “Crimson Fields”, and “Anzac Girls”. Military Nurse dramas are becoming a popular genre. They should do one on Japanese field hospitals of ww2. The reality of that life was probably too grim to show with any degree of realism.
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Eewww. Patriotism’s gross.
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