It’s March – Women’s History Month, and the month in which we celebrate International Women’s Day. WIWIP feels very strongly that it is important to highlight and showcase the many brilliant women working in the fields of war studies, defence, security, international relations and international politics, so this year, starting in March and as part of our efforts to mark IWD, we’re going to be sharing brief interviews with some of the fantastic women with which we have the enormous privilege of working with and learning from.
Today we’re pleased to introduce you to Robyn Ferguson. Robyn is a PhD candidate at the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London. She is also a Graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, and served for 25 years in the US Army as an intelligence officer, technical counterintelligence battalion commander, planner and long-term strategist.
What does International Women’s Day mean to you? How do you celebrate it?
I first heard of International Women’s Day in 2010 when I was serving as the Senior US Military Observer for MONUC/ MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I remember there was buzz across the country and within the mission about International Women’s Day. Various celebrations took place across the country. I received many wishes from colleagues within MONUSCO for a “Happy International Women’s Day”. I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. As a lieutenant colonel with about 18 years of service, I still had the habit of hiding my femininity, lest I be considered “less competent” than my male peers. I passively observed the activities of the day. After my MONUSCO experience with IWD, I mostly forgot about IWD in the ensuing years.
I next celebrated IWD in 2017 by abstaining from uncompensated, gender-based labor. At that time, I was a military retiree, and a Defense Attaché Spouse in the Philippines. On that day, March 8th, 2017, as many women in the USA were on strike, I decided I would not engage in any “uncompensated” labor that is often expected of military spouses. As I withdrew from social obligations associated with military spouse culture, I felt badly, as I refused to help a friend based on that principle. While I felt that I had personally let her down, I also felt that the military and social institutions that place those expectations on women let her down by placing those expectations on her in the first place. These days, I don’t celebrate IWD on a given day – I just try to promote gender equality and inclusion in all I do. We are sometimes blind to the anachronistic habits that are rife in our institutions, and we need to constantly reexamine our assumptions.
Military institutions tend to proliferate predominately gender-based uncompensated labor expectations. In the US military, we have “Family Readiness Groups” or FRGs, which are often led by the spouse of the senior officer. [1] The purpose of these groups is to create communication and support networks that can be used when the service member is deployed. These obligations take a great deal of volunteer time to run. It is interesting that the best-resourced institution in the US Government – the US Department of Defense – still relies upon the uncompensated labor of military spouses to support deployments. This is wrapped up in the positive narrative of patriotism and selfless service.
Many of these institutions are throwbacks from yesteryear – when a woman’s prospects in life were closely tied to those of her husband. Her own achievements were generally judged by how much she complemented those of her husband’s. Perhaps 100 years ago, a young woman’s family would be happy to hear that she was being courted by a military officer. In these days, such a pronouncement poses a great risk to this young woman’s full potential, with frequent moves and career disruptions making military spouses a gravely underemployed and unemployed demographic. Since the US DOD is still predominately male, it follows that the majority of these spouses are female.
The US Department of Defense goes so far as to train military spouses (predominately women) to perform these support roles. We have training for senior spouses throughout the cycle of the service member’s career. I always give my husband Kevin the highest respect for attending spousal training in support of my Battalion Command. In support of my husband’s assignment as an attaché, I attended a military attaché spouse training course – the intent of which was to prepare military spouses for the unique nature of overseas attaché life. Entertaining, relationship building, and cultural sensitivity were all a part of the curriculum. All of these activities are uncompensated but take a significant amount of time. In meeting Military Attaché Spouses from other countries, I have learned that each country approaches this differently. Some do compensate military attaché spouses for their labor. I find it interesting that the USA – the home of capitalism, has yet to employ this practice.
The UN theme for IWD 2021 addresses the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for gender equality. In your opinion, what challenges does the pandemic pose to the creation of a more equal society? What can we do to try to overcome this?
The COVID 19 Pandemic poses a unique opportunity for us to examine assumptions such as: What is essential and valuable work? What is society’s obligation to its citizens, and are some more important to others? The 2020 election in the US was seen as a referendum of those issues. The Pandemic, and the government’s failure to respond to it exposed our medical personnel, workers in the food supply chain, delivery personnel, and so many other critical, but not wealthy, citizens on the front line and at risk every day. They are the heroes of the moment –keeping us supplied with food, healthcare, and our essential services. This virus also affected and continues to affect minority communities to a greater degree and has put working class families in economic jeopardy. In generations past, the “haves” comforted themselves with a Puritan narrative that their success was based on hard work, and the “others” suffered these problems due to their own poor choices. Institutional injustices such as racism and sexism were not a part of the narrative.
One difficult issue – is that of the division of labor within a household. The socially defined roles of women and men within the household have been tested with predominately women exiting the workforce for a variety of reasons. Certainly, research will help us better understand that dynamic, and perhaps private sector and government policies can prevent such an exodus in the future. Did women exit the workforce because they had the lower household paycheck? Were they lower income earners due to multiple entries and exits that accompany childbearing and childcare expenses? Did they exit because their husbands refused to bear a fair share of the load? Were the “let go” due to their gender, or other reasons? Are there public and private sector policies that could better support families so that it is not an “either”, “or” choice? Perhaps research should examine all who exited the workforce, both women and men, to understand some of these dynamics.
Each of us promote equality by being open to new ideas, challenging old assumptions and supporting initiatives to do so. For example, I am proud that the US Army has wholeheartedly taken on the task of renaming military posts that were named for Southern Civil War generals. The US Army is taking on the uncomfortable legacy of GEN Robert E. Lee, and the postmortem narrative that erased his acceptance of slavery. In each of these initiatives, there are some who feel we are erasing history when we bring those people down from the pedestals where they used to reside. However, in elevating them, our society had chosen to erase uncomfortable truths about these people’s beliefs and life’s work that unjustly enslaved people who deserved to be free.
What advice would you give to women students wishing to work in the same field as you?
Women now have unprecedented opportunities. The cracks in the glass ceiling continue to widen, thanks to hundreds of years of hard work of the women and men who came before us. I say go for it! Don’t apologize for your gender. Bring your whole self to the task. Help your sisters out. Help everyone out. Seek mentors, mentor others. Build a diverse network of people who do and do not look like you. When seeking equality and equity – build bridges, don’t build walls. Equality and equity are not about revenge. It is about seeing how we can maximize the talent within our institutions, our country and our world.
With these opportunities, dilemmas and challenges remain. What is the shape of the ideal family? Men, in most cases, cannot bear children. This biological reality and the choice to bear children is a significant event that creates a professional achievement gap between men and women. Until corporate America sees familial duties as the realm of both men and women, that achievement gap will persist. The choice to be a present parent should not be a career detriment for either a woman or a man. Then again, corporate interest is profit. Until we can monetize and show the return on investment of leveling that achievement gap, corporate America will not change.