God bless them. There’s always one in every article’s comment section.
I was reading through articles about how women can now serve in combat units in the military, and, as always, people are hashing out their differences in the comments section. As people argue that this is a bad idea because women would be raped in prisoner-of-war situations or that this new ruling would cause training standards to drop, I can always count on there being one guy who says, “And those hormones. Am I right, guys? Who wants to deal with all those women when they’re on their periods?”
I have nicknamed him the period guy. He is my favorite. I get the mental image of a dude sitting behind his computer and waiting for the Internet equivalent of bro-style high fives.
I am always comforted by the period guy because, in a world where sexism has become a multiheaded beast that’s hard to identify and even harder to conquer, he will always exist as a shining example of lack of subtlety.
It’s always a blow to the ego when you realize your demographic hasn’t exactly progressed as far as you hoped it would have. It’s 2013 after all, right? Here I was thinking there were definitely minority groups that were needier in the civil rights department than I am, and then something like the combat debate hits the courts, and I’m kicked off my social justice pedestal as I watch people go back to arguing about the rights of women.
It always serves as a reminder that change is a long, arduous process that will never happen without some kicking and screaming along the way.
I should be glad, at least, that the argument over gender equality has gone from broad situations to more specific ones nowadays. Women serving in the military is now a bygone issue. It has been narrowed down to them serving in combat units. We are getting there surely enough, but it still seems to be taking a while.
To be honest, I am really looking forward to seeing how this plays out in the next couple of years. I believe if the standards for combat training are unchanged, combat units will have to deal with women coming into their ranks. There may not be many women who make the training cut or decide the benefits of the frontline outweigh the risks, but the ones who do will have earned the troops’ respect, and nothing will kill this whole debate faster than respect.
Even down the road, I’m going to check the comments section and still see the period guy flaunting his thing. He’ll be telling us all we have to do to win a war is unleash a herd of women on their time of the month, so they can nag the enemy to death. Then I will reach through the Internet to high-five this dude because across time and space, he will still be sitting behind his keyboard making the same tired jokes, not noticing as the world progresses around him.
Lauren Flannery is a business administration sophomore at UF. Her column usually runs on Tuesdays. You can contact her via opinions@alligator.org.
