We can say that women in the military run through a bureaucracy because they are governed by all of the above characteristics that Weber says this type of institution must have. Before January of this year, women were not allowed to be in combat. Well, at least on the front lines. This means that the women that wished to be on the front line could not because the military had a strict order of excluding them from any combat of this nature. The lifting of this ban has sparked much controversy across the nation. Especially because the just within the last few years they had lifted the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. This was a course of action in which gays and lesbians were barred from entering any branch of the military.
So, naturally Americans were a little heated by the recent decision to allow women into the front lines. There is quite a range of rebuttals by the American citizens in regards to this lift. It ranged anywhere from women are not meant to be in the front line because they do not have the same strength as men to women should be in combat because they went through the same exact training the men went through in that position.
One comment that I did see in the comments section of the news article was that a citizen was concerned that if a woman became a POW and they were raped. They are afraid of what it would do to them mentally if this happened to them. This caught me by surprise because I remember watching the “Invisible War” and it was documentary about how women in the military were raped and they told their superior and they were not believed. I was surprised because if someone is worried about them being raped as POW from being in first-hand combat, what does that say about those that are raped by someone in their own branch? Does this mean that the women that are raped by Americans do not matter?
In addition, with the idea of the women in the front line being a part of a bureaucracy; you will also find the notion of power. For these women to be able to finally fight in the front lines, they had to exert some form of power to make their wishes their known. These women fought against the societal norms and oppression because they wanted to feel equal to men. Until recently with the lifting of exclusion, women did not have power in the combat zone.
However, now they are going to be able to have first-hand knowledge of what our men go through day in and day out on those front lines fighting for our freedom. Hopefully, now women will be seen as equal to men on the battlefield instead of being oppressed. This exclusion lifting is a drastic change in the way the military is going to operate and I am hoping that this will let other organizations let women be equal to men as well.
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/women-combat-defense-secretary-leon-panetta-lifts-pentagon/story?id=18295570