Katy Perry, Naomi Wolf And The Real Problem With Women’s Combat Equality

5:15 pm, March 30th | by Amy Tennery

I’m all for women on the front lines of battle. Claims that all women somehow aren’t strong enough to serve in combat are absurd — particularly in our age of digitized, tech-heavy warfare.

So why does Katy Perry’s controversial video for the song “Part of Me,” in which she enlists in the Marines as an act of female defiance, leave me feeling conflicted?

Some background: Perry’s song is actually about rebounding from a breakup and, as gossip rags are very careful to point out, was written before her separation from her husband Russell Brand (for what it’s worth). In the video she catches her boyfriend canoodling with another gal and — in a fit of rebellion — lops off her hair and joins the Marines.

There are several arguably pro-women moments in the video — Katy Perry (in, sigh, full makeup) running drills through the mud with weights and shouting things and what have you. For a second, let’s overlook the fact that she finds self-realization with a bayonet, rather than, I dunno, maybe starting a journal or something a little less extreme. There are way worse messages you could send to women than this video.

Yes, woven into it are a few moments of bumper-sticker level patriotism; Perry dances beneath an American flag the size of a circus tent and gets her inspiration to join the armed forces from an actual bumper sticker reading “All Women Are Created Equal, Then Some Become Marines,” et cetera. This is either awesome or lame, depending on your point of view.

Watch for yourself:

She’s so empowered! She’s moved on! …And she wouldn’t have gotten there without the Marines?

It’s no wonder, then, that feminist critic Naomi Wolf came out guns blazing (if you’ll pardon the pun) this week, calling for a boycott of the video and claiming that it was nothing more than propaganda for the Marines. Here’s a statement from her Facebook page:

“Have you all seen the Katy Perry Marines video? It is a total piece of propaganda for the Marines…I really want to find out if she was paid by them for making it…it is truly shameful. I would suggest a boycott of this singer whom I really liked — if you are as offended at this glorification of violence as I am .”

But is it that simple? While you can argue that the video is pro-military, is it all bad for women? Has avowed Katy Perry Fan Naomi Wolf really watched the whole oeuvre and only now found a problem with one of her videos? I’d argue that, as far as being pro-woman goes, this is leaps and bounds beyond her other efforts:

Perhaps having a video that cheers on military women (you know, just one every decade or so?) isn’t so bad?

And let’s consider for a moment the timing of the “Part of Me” video — released roughly a month-and-a-half after the Pentagon ruled to reconsider its regulations on women in the military. Specifically, military officials have decided to reevaluate women’s right to serve on the front lines, something that could improve our chances for promotion. And while Perry’s video reads as an impulse decision by a heartbroken woman, the combat stuff has real ramifications for career military women. To prove they’re fit for combat, military women have been entering cage matches against men. This is sort of rad.

But between the combat changes, the Katy Perry mascara-laden wind sprints, and Wolf’s advocacy, there’s an uncomfortable truth: It’s really hard to advocate for equality in a career you find problematic.

Would I like to see more women working on Wall Street? Hypothetically, sure. Am I about to start working 80-hour weeks for six figures? Nope! And I think I could make a fairly reasoned argument for why I think that’s nuts. Similarly, with support for the Afghan war dropping sharply, and this years’-long conflict dragging on longer than anyone could have expected, I’d imagine I’m not the only one who wants more for our armed forces. And, yes, that includes women.

I want more women on the front lines — except, I don’t. And that’s the problem.

TAGS: katy perry naomi wolf | katy perry part of me

Anonymous

A liberal who doesn’t like the military. Color me shocked!
http://twitter.com/CRCampbell42 Caitlin Campbell

I really didn’t want to watch this video. I don’t much like Katy Perry, and I am a female Marine, and I’ve been on deployment and I’ve been in combat. It seriously made me throw up in my mouth a little bit that she would even conceive of making such a video.

Someone clearly did their homework. Most of those scenes are from boot camp, and yeah I remember all of it. So maybe it is a little propaganda, oh well.
Female Marines do, in fact, wear makeup. There is nothing anti-feminist or submissive about wearing makeup, even in a combat zone. In a penis-heavy gun club like the military, you do what you have to to feel good about yourself. I like to wear sexy underwear under my uniform sometimes. No one will see it, but just knowing it’s there makes me feel better about where I’ve ended up.
Pro-military is no pro-violence, the Marines do a lot of good humanitarian works around the world that never get talked about.
And may I just say, finally a recruitment video for females? They skipped over the worst parts (MEPS, standing in formation forever, douchebags giving you bad scores on the rifle range, etc.), but dammit if we weren’t downsizing this would almost bring our gender ratio at least up to army levels.
Anonymous

“It’s really hard to advocate for equality in a career you find problematic.”

What’s problematic are women who feel as though they are obligated to pass judgment on other women for the choices they make.
Anonymous

I’m not passing judgment on anyone. I’m saying that I feel our current military engagements haven’t taken care of the troops we have. I want women to excel in the military and I want a government that sticks up for them.
Anonymous

Naomi Wolf not only passed judgment but posted instructions on what to do about how SHE felt. Your reaction was not one of disgust that any woman pulled this crap with another, but to second guess your initial reaction to the video. All careers are problematic, but at no time should pro-military anything be viewed as ‘propaganda’.
Lisa Jonte

Proof again that feminism is not a hive-mind. Despite being a feminist (not to mention a tree-hugging, Liberal, Democrat) myself, I know little of Ms. Wolf and, after this particular display, don’t care to.
As was stated above, being pro-military is not the same thing as being pro-violence. Would this controversy even exist if Perry had done like so many others before her and made a revenge-fantasy video for her breakup song? Would images of keying the cheater’s car, cutting up his clothes or having a “cat fight” with the other woman even have registered on anyone’s radar? I doubt it.

So some see the video as propaganda for the Marines, so what? First off, not all propaganda is bad. Second, I can certainly think of worse directions a person can take when trying to get their life together. Learning discipline and self-mastery are good things.

I have only two requirements of anyone who wants my respect: Don’t be willfully ignorant, or willfully malicious. In one fell swoop, Ms. Wolf has failed both.
Sarah

Thanks for commenting. It’s always good to hear from the people actually being represented in these things. Of course, thanks for serving!
http://twitter.com/briecs Brianna Sheldon

I don’t think bashing women in combat or the Marines is a good way to support women.
http://allaboutindiancelebrities.blogspot.in/ Sonyamchss

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jack sprat

You’re close. Here’s the cigar. Naomi Wolf is herself a propagandist. What’s more, this particular diatribe of hers is baldly propagandistic. Although she has always cast herself as a feminist, she flies a false flag. In truth, she is an unrepentant Red who is incensed that the success of her chosen Trojan horse, in part, has escaped her control. Where most women who consider themselves feminists are searching for an accommodation of their values within the existing culture, Naomi happily seeks to blow up that which came before. And to **** all with the lives damaged in the process.

The radical mindset is perhaps best encapsulated by the street slogan used by Jesse Jackson some years past: “Hey! Hey!, Ho! Ho!; Western Culture’s got to go!” These fellow travelers bloody (!) well meant it then–as ever.
jack sprat

Speaking as a outsider, a serious question occurs to me. Given the entirely distinct mission of the Corps, whose charge is, to the extent possible, engagement and neutralization, wouldn’t a more accurate comparison of such levels be with Army light infantry, in particular, and only certain of their supporting elements? After all, one doesn’t expect to see even a small pot-belly on either a Marine General or an Army Colonel of Light Infantry.

Those who are, at least theoretically, expected to be able to shoulder a rifle and a full load of gear and move directly into combat–at a moment’s notice–will inevitably have significantly greater need for both the vigor and the muscle mass needed to hump in excess of 100 lbs about, for hours at a time, days at a stretch. In a very critical sense, both survival and success require fit beasts of burden.

There may well come a time when the enemy isn’t an uncommitted and technologically backward one. When EMP have taken down our satellite nets and resupply quickly becomes a bitter joke, what use then one’s career opportunities on that day? Carts shouldn’t be placed before horses.

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