Opinion Essay: The War Within

To compliment our recent discussions over gender roles, differences, and inequity between the sexes we read a recent Time magazine essay by Nancy Gibbs. The article, titled "The War Within", speaks to the dangers that American servicewomen are facing overseas. According to Gibbs, the danger these women are facing is coming from their fellow troops much more so than enemy forces. The essay is an expose about the realities American servicewomen face when it comes to rape and sexual assault while they are deployed overseas.

Many of you had strong reactions to this essay, which is understandable. I, too, felt like this was an important issue to talk about. I emailed this essay to you all (in a paper-saving effort) and you all read along with me and highlighted words and phrases that stood out to you as important in relation to this topic. Here is what you highlighted:

After this, I asked you all to react to this essay in a blog post. I wanted you to have the time and space to reflect on this issue and form your own opinion in your own space before we speak about it as a whole group. We ran out of time today and did not start our post-blogging discussion today, so we'll start that next class. Here are some student blog posts:

The Secret Military War

The War Within

Women in the Military