Battle Between Sexes critical
Battle Between Sexes criticalSomewhere in my heart I would like to believe that I am a strong and disciplined woman. Sometimes, that is true, more often, it is half-true and then there are the days when it is a lie. But people are dimensional and complex which often makes it fun to watch them. The truth is, in humanity, there are many stories to be caught but the ones that got away - they make the best stories of all.
The story of "GI Jane" begins in the male dominated world of the Navy Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil played by Demi Moore. The opportunity comes to be the first woman to train to be a SEAL she decides it is her only option to advance. The carrot comes in the person of Senator Lillian DeHaven played by Anne Bancroft, who has an agenda of her own. DeHaven, chairperson of the Armed Services Committee, has been bashing heads with the male-dominated and liking-it-that-way top brass over the appointment of Secretary of Defense and she decides it is a good time to get what she wants - an integrated fighting force. Blackmailed and certain that no woman would ever succeed, the brass agrees to a test case and Lieutenant O'Neil is sent on her way. Unaware that she is the political pawn of a "feminist" Senator, Jordan O'Neill agrees to become the first woman to train with the elite fighting force. If Jordan succeeds, then she will strike a blow for the idea of women in combat, but no one expects or even really wants her to succeed. Jordan, appearing as masculine as possible, bravely endures humiliation, ridicule, sabotage, and physical torture to prove she can do it. O�Neil suffers each of these indignities, and even shaves her hair to escape its encumbrance.
O'Neil finds herself fighting for respect and survival among the officers, the fellow trainees, and the world it seems. To make matters worse, she ticks off C.O. Salem by insisting on one standard of training. If it is to be done, O'Neil will do it as all the men have to do it or not at all. The toughest battle for her lies in the person of Master Chief John Urgayle whose job it is to destroy and if they stay, then to build them back up. Urgayle doesn't believe women should be in combat, not because they are not capable but because it distracts the men, forcing them to be protective and therefore vulnerable to assault. And Jordan finds herself embroiled against even her allies as DeHaven shows her character to be more suspect than the rest.
Even if statistically more men than women could make it as a SEAL, this would say nothing about individuals. It seems so stupid to pontificate in advance, in a vacuum, about whether, being a woman, Jordan O'Neil could or should make...
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