Sunday, February 23, 2014
Blog number 7, I'll make a man out of you
I am going back to the Disney theme again this week for my inspiration in this weeks blog. I knew since Monday when prof. Stark told us about women who disguised themselves as men in order to fight in the Mexican Revolution that I wanted to take the time to talk about that. Stark gave us the specific example of Petra Herrera, who disguised herself as a man not only to fight in the war, but to be treated with the respect and opportunity of a man at war. We then learned that she moved up the ranks to colonel for the leadership she displayed and effort she put in. She then revealed herself to actually be a woman, and was treated with the respect that she deserved afterward as a result of her efforts and not her gender. Hua Mulan is a legendary Chinese heroine portrayed in the Disney movie Mulan known for doing the same thing in the war against the Huns that Herrera did in the Mexican revolution. Mulan, fearing for her fathers life, and irritated by the inability of women to join the army signed up as a man, and is shown in the movie struggling to keep up at first. But then she concentrated and really put her mind to it, and ends up being better than even her leader in the training camp. Everyone respects her now for what she has shown on the battlefield. She is found out to be a woman and is at first shunned for this, but then she then kills the leader of the Huns and is given the highest award possible in the military by the emperor himself. Regardless of her gender, she has shown her worth on the battlefield and is given a reward like any man in the same position would have received. In both situations, the woman disguised herself to fight for what she believed in, proved her worth, and was rewarded despite their gender. I find this very interesting because it happened so similarly, yet so far away in distance and time, but still shows almost the exact same moral of no matter who you are, you deserve a chance, and if you succeed, you will be rewarded like any other person in the same position. In fact, this apparently occurs often enough in history to have a wikipedia page titled: List of wartime cross-dressers. It is pretty clear that women could handle the fighting expected, and wanted to help with the war-efforts all throughout history.
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I totally did not see this connection and I absolutely love it. You are right that there are many parallels between Petra Herrera and Mulan. I think the coolest part about these stories is that the women were allowed to fight once they had revealed themselves to be women. I find it interesting though, that with these women (and as you said they were definitely not alone) proving themselves on the battlefield, why the gender bias still remained. For instance, In the song "I'll make a man out of you" from Mulan one of the lines sung by the male leader asks "did you send me daughters, when I asked for sons?" I think this is very profound because the armies did not even invite women to join the army. This manner of thinking was very common. I personally do not understand why the army generals would not at least invite women to try to join the army. It would increase their recruitment rates and the women would still have to prove herself. As seen by Petra and Mulan, women had the ability to make a very positive contribution to the cause. I commend the Mexican revolutionary leaders who did not follow the stereotypical recruiting pattern of the time and allowed women to take up arms.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of this song when Stark was talking about this in class as well! Another point in history when women practiced cross-dressing to fit into male-dominated roles was during the 18th century. I remember one of my teachers talking about women dressing up as men and becoming pirates or joining pirate ships. This made me re-consider the role of women on the battlefield in modern times. Although women no longer have to cross-dress they still do not have the same roles as men in the military or navy. For example, only last year was it passed that women can fight along men in the front-lines. I asked one of my friends who served in the military about women's roles on the battlefield. He explained to me that one of his generals that headed his group was a woman. He said that personally he had more respect for her than if it was man because he understand how much harder it was for her to get to that position. However, he explained that many of the men in his troop didn't share that same respect for her and didn't take her orders seriously.
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