Snot Rockets and Rhinestones
Posted by Emily in 
By Marti D. Ribeiro
Recently, I was asked for a copy of my resume for a potential job offer. I obliged and waited patiently to hear back from the potential future employer. I received a visit from a contact at this potential new employer who had reviewed my resume and was interested in hiring me.
“Great!” I thought.
But, my moment of excitement turned quickly into slight dismay. They wanted copies of my military discharge and VA disability paperwork. I didn’t have a problem with that; most employers get some sort of “credit” for hiring a disabled vet. But, what put me on edge was not the fact they wanted to verify my previous employment, or my disability; it was that some of the people in the new company had a hard time believing that I was a veteran.
Let me stop and explain a little more. My nickname in the service was “Combat Barbie.” I’m tall, blonde, and I lack that 1,000-yard battle-hardened stare. Plus, I was almost five months pregnant at the time, so I looked more like “Mother Goose” than “GI Jane.” I’m a Carrie Bradshaw wannabe who loves clothes and any and all things I can use to decorate myself, including my healthy use of zebra stripes and rhinestones. So, I probably don’t come across as someone who would eat snakes and blow snot rockets with the best of them. I used to smoke like a chimney and swear like a ….pirate (I don’t want to offend any of my Navy buddies out there). This is not a role people see me in today.
So, while I would like to go about my life not giving people’s perceptions about me a second thought…it bugs me. Women in today’s military don’t usually fit into the stereotypical soldier role and it’s time for people to realize that. We don’t fit neatly into an image of either GI Jane or the ultra-feminine WWII nurses pictured on hundreds of posters nationwide. We’re stuck somewhere in between. We want to maintain our femininity, but still show the “boys” that we know what we’re doing.
All I’m saying is that people shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I spent eight years on active duty, served two tours overseas, saw actual combat, and earned ribbons for my actions in those situations. Just because I don’t I fit into what people think a veteran “looks” like, doesn’t mean than I’m not one.
So, maybe handing over my paperwork to “prove” that I’m a veteran who has seen combat will at least make a few people stop and think before they judge the next woman they decide to hire.
Changing stereotypes, one HR department at a time…
Back in school, I’m doing so much lenairng.
Marti, I know just what you mean. Even though it was a long time ago, i experienced the same, both in the service, where when I was among civilians people outright refused to believe it, & also, when the spouses saw me when not on duty, would say things like I don’t know how you can remain feminine when not in uniform, 9as if this automatically made us man like), & very often after service. I spent 8 years in the Coast guard in non traditional jobs, 7 people just found it impossible to believe I had served, or that I had done these unladylike things, because I was a cute woman, when young, 7 this just went against the grain of their thought processes & image. It takes a long time for the world to understand thee is no specific look to a woman who has seved, 7 sometimes they just don’t get it at all. good for you for clearing that up, & having the forbearance not to deck them, an impulse I completely understand.
Don’t give up the Rhinestones. The more of us that show we are women warriors and like our bling but can still put bombs on target the better. I too had a hard time while in and was a sailor, cussed and smoked but could be a lady too. I did it for 26 years and it never quit amazing me that it amazed people when I was out of uniform that I had served that long. Now I am one of two female professors in an aerospace department and people still look at me funny. But you know the young ladies don’t. They want to grow up and be like us. Let’s keep changing it one HR and place at a time so our younger sisters can be what they want to be!
I remember when I was active duty often feeling that I had to convince people I was really in the service. Sometimes at medical I was asked for my husbands social even though I was active duty and he was a dependent.
Marti you are not alone. It’s going to take time for the public to catch up to the military realities.
To their credit ,my local Legion whipped out the membership form when I asked for it and never even intimated that they’d even entertained the *thought* I was a spouse and not a veteran. Times are changing and progress is happening.
However, in the last four years, a local political gadfly several times publicly accused me of lying about my military service. Instead of decking the little ass-hat (my friends stopped me), who never served this country a day in his life, I took my DD-214′s down to the County Clerk’s office and registered them. The Clerk will redact SSN and other ID-theft possible stuff, and will produce a sworn affidavit that my DD-214′s are true and authentic. Now, I can sue the bastard for libel and defamation per se if he so much as peeps again. If I’d been a man, he would never have *dared.*
My mother, who was in the second graduating class out of Marine Corps Womens’ Reserve OCS out of Hunter College in WWII, was initially denied membership in her local VFW and Legion. She was told her discharge was dishonorable and she knew that it *was* Honorable, and had the paper to prove it. They refused it. She had to write to the Commandant of the Marine Corps and her Senator, who both wrote to the national Commandants of VFW and American Legion confirming Mom’s honorable discharge, and informing them that they would indeed be accepting my mother’s membership. So, the local Commanders showed up at her front door, threw the membership cards in her face, and told her not to expect to be welcome at meetings. Times have changed.