ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, October 12, 1996 TAG: 9610140022
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PATRICIA J. MCPHERSON
I AM amazed at recent statements from the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women regarding coeducation plans at Virginia Military Institute. These and other feminist, egalitarian groups supported the court case against VMI on the purported premise that women are entitled equally to participate in a VMI education. Having won that battle, they now reveal a hidden agenda: not to open a previously denied experience to women, but to change the nature of that experience so that it is no longer that to which they had demanded female access.
The ACLU says that it will watch closely to oppose any harassment of women at VMI, knowing full well that controlled and purposeful harassment of all first-year cadets is an integral part of the VMI system. Karen Johnson, vice president of NOW, tells us that shaved heads and equal physical standards for females at VMI constitute hostility toward women. The ACLU and NOW claim that equal standards for women are ``malicious'' and ``vindictive.''
The Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership was created specifically to provide the experience of a military college within a framework that acknowledges some differences of expectation for females. This kinder, gentler version of a public military institution was specifically rejected by those who fought VMI's all-male tradition, and ultimately by the Supreme Court, which declared that WVIL isn't equal to VMI. WVIL incorporates precisely the kinds of accommodations toward women that NOW and the ACLU now expect of VMI. When VMI becomes WVIL, what becomes of the court decision that women must be allowed the VMI experience and that WVIL is inadequate for that purpose? Will VMI then be declared an inadequate version of itself?
Several groups and individuals are zeroing in on VMI's acknowledgment that women in the Corps of Cadets will, during the first-year ``rat line,'' have the same buzzcut as men, and the physical standards will be equal for all cadets. Johnson whines that women carry a ``greater emotional burden'' with shaved heads. What a sexist admission, especially coming from a group that would be expected to cry foul at any insinuation that women's emotional makeup causes them to be differently qualified!
Celebrities Susan Powter and Sinead O'Connor didn't seem to be overly burdened by their feminine bald heads, while many male cadets find the buzzcut to be a huge sacrifice. Perhaps this is an individual matter and not a sexist stereotype? Or is NOW surprisingly acknowledging that there is truth, after all, in some generalizations about gender and emotional qualifications?
The haircut is a strategic part of the VMI system. It purposefully strips away the cadet's last vestige of personal vanity so that his sense of pride is ultimately directed toward the corps as a unit rather than toward himself as an individual. Women who desire the VMI experience will elude a significant part of it if they avoid the humbling challenge of living for six months without any source of personal vanity.
As for physical standards, feminists ought to applaud, not attack, VMI's position that lowering them would demean women. The physical requirements are not of Olympic magnitude, but are standards of reasonable fitness. Some male cadets have trouble meeting them; some females will ace them. Come on, whiners: to run 11/2 miles in 12 minutes (the minimum standard for VMI cadets) is within the reach of fit adults of all ages and gender. To reduce such attainable standards for female cadets is to relegate them to the powder room and the cotillion ball.
Every year a number of male cadets leave VMI because they don't care to endure the adversarial system, haircut or physical demands. The system hasn't changed or lowered its standards for those males who feel the ``emotional burden'' is too great. To insist that changes be made for females who feel burdened is a double standard indeed. And to insist that VMI now change in some of its most integral aspects - in the very characteristics that made it a unique experience coveted by women - is to be duplicitous, malicious and vindictive in the extreme. The fact is that, other than those accommodations that allow for basic decency in a dual-gender environment, changes in the system would deny the VMI experience to the women who desire it and to the men who have chosen it.
How can any thoughtful observer not be impressed by the dignity and class of Gen. Josiah Bunting, superintendent of VMI - who ``fought the good fight'' and lost? He has committed VMI to provide a successful environment for women who desire to enter. Even while privatization was being debated, committees were at work to make the transition with class and without the negative results experienced at The Citadel a year ago.
Thoughtfully proposed changes include revised recruitment procedures and materials designed to appeal more to women; additional female staff positions; added academic majors more appealing to women; and building remodeling to allow for decency. NOW, the ACLU and the Justice Department seem blind to the efforts being made to accomplish the very difficult task of preserving the heart and soul of VMI while extending access to women.
A reminder to these groups: You won the battle, fought in the name of equal rights for women. Don't betray your own stated beliefs and demean the female gender by now proclaiming women unequal to the task of being full VMI cadets. It's time you stop carping and support a VMI that's attempting, with dignity, to face a challenging future.
Patricia J. McPherson is a teacher at Tazewell High School and has a son who attends Virginia Military Institute.
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