More U.S. Women Veterans Are Writing Their Own History
April 1, 2018
April 1, 2018: Under pressure to acknowledge that female service members were often already in combat, the Pentagon officially opened all jobs to women in 2015. Women are now the fastest-growing group in the military, and there are nearly 2 million female veterans in the country.
Many of these female veterans form a growing national movement to bring the unvarnished experiences of women who have served into mainstream popular culture. As a result, more female veterans are attending memoir-writing retreats, learning new storytelling skills at workshops for stand-up comedy, screenwriting and improv, and performing in poetry slams and plays.
According to Peter Molin, a retired Army infantry officer who deployed to Afghanistan and now teaches writing at Rutgers University, women who are writing about the military are upending the "conventional and outdated idea" that our society should "send our boys to war to make them a man,"
"When we see women in the military serving so strongly, it becomes about, well, shouldn't we be going to war to prove our competence and bravery and love of country - not just manhood?" Molin said.
Read more: More Women Veterans Are Writing Their Own History (chicagotribune.com)
April 1, 2018
More U.S. Women Veterans Are Writing Their Own History
April 1, 2018
April 1, 2018: Under pressure to acknowledge that female service members were often already in combat, the Pentagon officially opened all jobs to women in 2015. Women are now the fastest-growing group in the military, and there are nearly 2 million female veterans in the country.
Many of these female veterans form a growing national movement to bring the unvarnished experiences of women who have served into mainstream popular culture. As a result, more female veterans are attending memoir-writing retreats, learning new storytelling skills at workshops for stand-up comedy, screenwriting and improv, and performing in poetry slams and plays.
According to Peter Molin, a retired Army infantry officer who deployed to Afghanistan and now teaches writing at Rutgers University, women who are writing about the military are upending the "conventional and outdated idea" that our society should "send our boys to war to make them a man,"
"When we see women in the military serving so strongly, it becomes about, well, shouldn't we be going to war to prove our competence and bravery and love of country - not just manhood?" Molin said.
Read more: More Women Veterans Are Writing Their Own History (chicagotribune.com)
