G.I. Jane Essays - Films, G.I. Jane, Women In The United States Navy

G.I. Jane G.I. Jane The film G.I. Jane takes place in the 1990's and shows discrimination of a women in the United States Navy. Lieutenant Jordan O' Neal played by Demi Moore, is a naval intelligence officer who has ambitions of moving beyond her military desk job, to become a member of the Navy Seal. Thanks to the political maneuvering of a female senator, O' Neal becomes the first female candidate for the Navy Seals. The Seal's are the military's elite Special Forces team. O' Neal becomes the guinea pig of senator Lillian DeHaven in this film. DeHaven bullies the Navy into taking O'Neal as a Seal recruit in order to become the first female member of the Navy Seal. O'Neal is put through a series of tests and her main obstacle is Master Chief John Urayle, a man so menacing that the music slows down each time he enters a scene. 60% percent of all male recruits quit or do not make the cut, O' Neal must overcome this statistic and others to become a part of Navy Seals. The most memorable scenes in the entire film are two extended music sequences in which Demi shaves off all her lovely locks, and does one-armed push-ups in a tight tank top. Her struggle is about survival of the fittest. This is made plain by three words spoken by O'Neals words that become sort of the mantra for the movie "Suck my - - - -". What these words means is that O' Neal has become fully assimilated, she has transformed into a lean mean fighting machine. What DeHaven and O'Neal's superiors and peers did not realize was that she dose not just try but she succeeds. She makes it through the horrifying grueling rigors of multilevel training despite the distrust and animosity of some of the men and without gender-based aids. She encounters a great deal of sexism and discrimination among the troops. Just as naturally, she shaves of her hair, gets buff, perseveres and earns everyone's respect in the end. Lt. Jordan O'Neal a woman fighting for the right to stand shoulder to shoulder with her male counterparts in the U.S. Navy. Her traning officers and fellow applicants confront her regulariliy with sexist attitudes, the press spied on her with telephoto lenses the military men who wanted to maintain a male institution would hound her with unfounded charges of lesbianism. But non of her advesiariers counted on O'Neal singular strength. Even when she becomes fodder for compromising politicians who betray her, she refuses to surrender. Jordan O'Neal is a Navy Veteran who resents not being allowed into combat during the Gulf War. Now there is a move under way for full female equality in the fighting forces. One quarter of U.S. Navy jobs are still off limits to women still today. On April 28, 1993 Secretary of Defense Les Aspin announced a policy to open up nurse specialists and assignments to women in the armed forces. The policy means that women will no longer be excluded from military specialists simpily because the jobs are dangerous. It opened up combat aircraft to women. It instructed the Navy to open additional ships to women. In November Congress signed legislation repealing the law barring women from serving on combat ships. In the film Senator Dehaven was pushing the military to accept females in all possibiile military positions. In contemporary society, women are already now accepted into combat situations and previously all-male military academies. Of the nearly 260,000 combat and combat support positions opened to women in 1994 more than half were in the Navy. Still, the Navy has the highest percentage of non-restricted jobs after the Airforce, 91% and 99% respectively. In contrast one third of Army and Marine corps jobs are off-limits because women are barred from the ground infantry armor and artillery units (USA Today, 1998). In the closing scenes, the recruits final training exercise is diverted to aid in extracting American troops from the Middle East, the Master Chief was critically wounded. O'Neil gathered all her leadership experience and courage to save him and the mission, even at the cost of risking her own life. Demi Moore's portrayal of strong determined women should come as no surprise. Sampson Deborb (1760-1827) was the first women to enlist in the American armed forces under the name Robert Shurhlieff. She disguised herself as a man t serve in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment in 1782 during the Revolutionary War. She was twice wounded first by a Saber in a skirmmish in Tarry Town, NY and then by a Musket shot near East Chester.