Signaling Gear and Invisible Veterans
Good morning, let me tell you a bit about my experience in my college-neighborhood gym & the veterans who use it, while wearing my 101 tank top. Maybe it’ll help us think about how to solve the “invisible veterans” (read women) problem.
Most days I go to the gym wearing an assortment of Army unit t-shirts or tanks. Why, you ask 🤷♀️?
- because it’s work out gear I own
- 2) because it’s comfy
- 3) because I’m proud of my service
- 4) because I have great memories that make me smile
- 5) because I like to feel connected to the veteran community
People who study group behavior call this signaling gear — the pin from your church, the runner’s 26.2 sticker, MAGA hat, BLM sign, the 101st T-shirt. You get it. It helps us to suss out & connect with those who are “like us” in some way we’ve decided to identify with. It’s likely an evolutionary survival mechanism.
So, there I am, at my DC gym. Not an Army community, so it stands out, but it is near DC + university neighborhood, so there are plenty of Veterans in Veteran gear. I watch the guys strutting around the gym, giving each other head nods of recognition as they see the signaling t-shirt. You are one of us.
Then their gaze falls on me. Normally, one would expect, (because, of course, we’re all equal) that the same treatment would be extended to me. Head nod of approval, a glance of acceptance to the work I also did to be part of the team.
Instead, (you probably guessed it) I get nothing. A glance up and down and then straight away. No smile, no acknowledgement. Kind of reminds me of being in uniform every day on a male-dominated base in a male-dominated career.
For years I’ve worked in Veterans advocacy groups & were always asking the question (directed at the women, as if it’s our problem to solve) “how do we get more women to show up to events, to participate in our programs? How do we stop women veterans from suffering 5–1 on so many issues compared to their men counterparts ?
Every time I tell a man veteran that I don’t miss the camaraderie in the same way that he does, because I was never let into the club in the same way they he was, they are baffled.
These are all “good guys” (I wouldn’t waste breath on the bad ones), but there’s no way they get it — because they never went looking for signs that the women they served with were incredibly isolated by the endemic & institutionalized sexism in our active duty environment.
Every time we make a woman prove that she has the right to be there in ways that we don’t do to men, we’re exacerbating isolation. Every time we question a woman service member’s friendships, we tighten the isolation screw. Every time we make jokes about “earning the t-shirt”…well, you know what I’m saying.
When we “outlaw sex” in deployed environments (General Order One, I’m looking at you), where women are numbered less than 5% of the population, watched and tracked with every movement, we signal that we don’t care that we’ve made the environment IMMENSELY dangerous for a huge number of soldiers.
Yes, it’s all tied together, and no I’m not exaggerating. We can stop the problem of invisible veterans, of the higher than normal rate of suicide, homelessness and depression seen amongst women veterans, if we stopped making them both invisible & hyper-visible during service.
The men soldiers aren’t bad, they aren’t doing it to be mean, or to purposefully exclude, in many cases. They just don’t understand why women have to come in and break up the boy’s club, because that’s the message they’ve received from the top.
As a woman veteran, I don’t care about being thanked for my service (I find it just as awkward as you men do), but I don’t like having to defend that I served every time I get “OMG you were in too?” from those who express no surprise at my husband’s service.
So I think I came here to say that the problem with “invisible veterans”, like everything else, is about culture. It’s not that women don’t want to self-identify as veterans. It’s that when we do, we want to not be ignored while the bearded guy next to us gets the head nod.
Thanks for coming to my second TED talk. Carry on, but actually, no, acknowledge a woman in uniform today. XOXO, — the elusive veteran without a beard
It wasn’t until #MilTwitter found this thread that I realized just how many women won’t even wear the t-shirt, have no desire to signal that they are part of the club, because it’s too exhausting. I’d see you, except we can’t. Maybe we need a signal of our own?
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Daniella Mestyanek Young is an American author and TEDx Speaker. Daniella has been breaking through barriers and challenging authority figures since her earliest childhood memories growing up in the horrifying Children of God Cult and on through her service and deployment to war twice. Daniella served as part of the first group of women who integrated into deliberate combat arms missions back in 2011 and has since spent the majority of her time leading in veteran service organizations to try and help folks heal and find their own definition of success after their service. Daniella is married to the world’s best special operations helicopter pilot and speaks primarily in Brazilian Portuguese with her daughter, who sasses her back in three languages. Daniella is currently at work on her memoir, details at www.daniellamestyanekyoung.com