Happy Women Veterans Recognition Day?

Hard to celebrate when women's military history is being erased

Friday was Women Veterans Recognition Day. It commemorates the anniversary of the 1948 Women's Armed Services Integration Act, which legally allowed women to serve as permanent, regular members of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Katie Chorbak, the President of 50501 Veterans, shared this on her Facebook page. It is reprinted here with her permission.

Happy Women Veterans Recognition Day?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Some of y’all have the audacity to post “Happy Women Veterans Recognition Day” while women’s service, contributions, and history are being erased right in front of our faces.
Women have served this country in every conflict. We served long before many of us were officially recognized. We served when the military didn’t want us. We served when our roles were restricted. We served when our injuries were ignored. We served when our harassment and assaults were dismissed. We served when people said women didn’t belong in uniform at all.
And after all that, we’re still fighting to have our service treated as if it matters.

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^{President Harry Truman signs the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act in 1948. This landmark legislation granted women the legal right to serve as permanent, regular members of the U.S. Armed Forces. No longer confined to temporary or auxiliary roles, women could now build full military careers and help shape the future of our armed services.}

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You want a celebration? For what?
So we can pretend everything is fine while women veterans are still fighting for recognition, respect, healthcare, promotion, protection, and a seat at the table?
Miss me with that bullshit.
What really gets me is watching women veterans support the very people and systems that are working against us and then turn around and post about sisterhood and empowerment. Especially white women veterans who overwhelmingly voted for this administration and are now silent while women’s voices are pushed aside, women’s achievements are minimized, and women’s service is erased.
And if that makes you uncomfortable, good.
Because I’m uncomfortable watching women vote against their own interests and then act shocked when our concerns are ignored.
I’m uncomfortable watching women veterans celebrate recognition while saying nothing about erasure.
I’m uncomfortable watching women who benefited from generations of women fighting before them turn around and help uphold the same patriarchy that harmed us.
Some of y’all got bigger balls than the men, I swear. The audacity is unreal.
Don’t tag me in your feel-good posts. Don’t tag me in your fake sisterhood. Don’t tell me we’re sisters in arms while you’re standing shoulder to shoulder with the same culture and power structures that have spent decades dismissing women, silencing women, and protecting the people who harmed women.

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Let’s talk about military sexual trauma.
Let’s talk about the women who were assaulted and then punished for reporting it.
Let’s talk about the women who were told to stay quiet if they wanted to keep their careers.
Let’s talk about the women who came home carrying trauma while institutions protected reputations instead of survivors.
Let’s talk about the fact that women veterans are still fighting to be believed.
Let’s talk about the names we remember because we refuse to let them be forgotten.

• Vanessa Guillén.

• LaVena Johnson.
  

Let’s talk about the women whose stories never made the news.
Let’s talk about the women whose names were forgotten.
Let’s talk about the women who left the military carrying trauma, PTSD, injuries, and scars while being told to be grateful for the opportunity to serve.
Let’s talk about the women who spent decades fighting for benefits, recognition, healthcare, and respect.
Let’s talk about women veterans fighting for reproductive freedom.
Let’s talk about women veterans fighting for healthcare that actually addresses our needs.
Let’s talk about women veterans fighting every day just to have our service acknowledged as equal and worthy of remembrance.
And then let’s talk about the fucking audacity of celebrating women veterans while staying silent about all of it.
Because that isn’t sisterhood.
That’s betrayal.

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You don’t get to help put people in power who diminish women, erase women veterans, attack women’s autonomy, and then wrap yourself in a flag once a year and call it support.
You don’t get to stay silent while women veterans are under attack and then suddenly become a proud woman veteran every June 12th.
I see you.
I know you.
Some of us are fighting every damn day to make sure women veterans are seen, heard, respected, promoted, protected, and remembered.
Some of us are fighting for survivors.
Some of us are fighting for healthcare.
Some of us are fighting for reproductive freedom.
Some of us are fighting for our deported sisters and the families being torn apart around us.
Some of us are fighting for women whose rights, safety, dignity, and futures are under attack.
Some of us are fighting so the next generation of women in uniform doesn’t have to survive the same bullshit we did.
And some of y’all are out here cheering for the very systems that made those fights necessary.

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So spare me the hashtags.
Spare me the fake solidarity.
Spare me the performative gratitude.
Real sisterhood isn’t a social media graphic.
Real sisterhood isn’t a yellow ribbon.
Real sisterhood isn’t posting “Happy Women Veterans Recognition Day.”
Real sisterhood is standing beside women when it costs you something.
Real sisterhood is speaking up when it’s uncomfortable.
Real sisterhood is fighting back against the people and institutions that continue to harm women veterans.
And if any of this makes you uncomfortable, especially if you’re my friend, good.
You know me.
I’ve always been the same person.
I’ve never had a problem saying this shit to someone’s face, and I’m not going to have a problem saying it here.
If you’re a woman veteran and you know me, then you know exactly what I stand for. You know exactly what I’ve been fighting for. None of this should be a surprise.
So don’t get offended because I said it out loud.
Get offended that women veterans are still fighting these battles in the first place.
And don’t make me tag you.
Because I will.

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If you’re more offended by this post than by the erasure of women veterans, by military sexual trauma, by women being silenced, by survivors being ignored, by women losing rights, by families being torn apart, then you’re proving my point.
Start doing the work.
Not one day a year.
Not when it’s trending.
Not when there’s a hashtag attached to it.
Every day.
Show up for survivors every day.
Show up for women veterans every day.
Show up for women whose rights, healthcare, dignity, and safety are under attack every day.
That’s the sisterhood.
Not the performative bullshit.
Not the social media posts.
Not the annual celebration.
The work.
The resistance.
The showing up.
Every damn day.
Until then, don’t tag me in your Women Veterans Recognition Day posts.
Don’t ask me to celebrate.
Don’t ask me to pretend everything is fine.
Don’t ask me to clap for the people and systems that continue to erase us.
We’re not celebrating the same thing.
Because while some of you are posting tributes, the rest of us are still fighting to make sure women veterans aren’t erased.
Organizing across party lines and state lines.
And if that truth makes you angry, uncomfortable, or defensive, maybe ask yourself why.

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As for the rest of it?
Fuck your performative gratitude.
Fuck your fake sisterhood.
And fuck anyone who thinks women veterans should be grateful for erasure, silence, and scraps of respect.
We’re still here.
We’re still fighting.
And we’re not shutting up.