"Women in the Military" is an essay by Lt. Susan Schnall that was published in the 1970 feminist anthology Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings From the Women's Liberation Movement.
One of five personal testimonies in the book about professional women, "Women in the Military" comments on Susan Schnall's personal experiences and the systemic sex discrimination women face in the military: "Women, regardless of rank, are in subservient positions in that any authority or responsibility they may have is ultimately under male control."
Activist Susan Schnall
Lt. Susan Schnall was a member of the Navy Nurse Corps in California. "Women and the Military" describes the investigation and surveillance of her peace activism. In October 1968, she joined with other demonstrators to speak out against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. They dropped leaflets on military installations in the Bay Area to publicize a march and rally, and she appeared at the march in uniform, which violated a recently issued Navy regulation. Susan Schnall's experience protesting Vietnam is featured in the 2005 film Sir! No Sir!
Her 1970 essay examines the way she was treated differently as a female officer from the way a male enlisted man who also wore his uniform to the protest was treated. In fact, she writes, she did not have to serve her six-month hard labor sentence because she was a woman. She concludes that the Navy's careful policies toward women and the chauvinism in the military prevented her punishment, and "the System defeated itself."
Military Male Supremacy
"Women in the Military" also comments on the disparity in the number of high ranks available to women and the discrimination in dependent benefit policies. At that time, she writes, women were not allowed to have dependents under age 18 and could not claim their husbands as dependents, even if the husbands were in school and had no source of income, unless the men were completely physically or mentally dependent on their wives. The Supreme Court later ruled this dependents policy unconstitutional in the 1973 case Frontiero v. Richardson.
"Women in the Military" names the qualities deemed important for promotions in the armed services: intelligence, leadership ability, loyalty, responsibility, reliability. These traits, she writes, are crucial because they relate to the service members' acceptance of the military system.
Susan Schnall writes that most women join the military because of their inferior position in civilian life, whether they are facing poverty, few opportunities after high school or unhappy family life. She would like to see a system where females have more control and responsibility, but "any attempt at reform would still leave a brutal and destructive organization, the existence of which negates the individuality and humaneness of its members."