Photo By Marc Loi | Staff Sgt. Penny Engler and USAID field program officer Trisha Bury are just two of...... read more read more
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – During the Civil War, women who wanted to fight alongside their male counterparts often had to resort to disguising themselves to do so. As a result, their experiences were rarely recorded and their stories untold.
Some 150 years later, not only do women make up about 15 percent of the U.S. military’s total force, more than 225,000 of them have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a world where the majority of women’s work is rarely seen and their experiences unrecorded, two of the women currently serving in Operation Enduring Freedom made their voices heard as they reflected on the past as well as looked toward the future in celebration of Women’s History Month.
Her black hair slicked back into a bundle, Staff Sgt. Penny Engler is quick with her words and quicker with a handshake as she tirelessly briefs senior leaders and trains soldiers on basic personal hygiene and safety. A Hoyt, Kan., native, the 24-year-old Reservist is on her second combat deployment. Like 28-year-old Trisha Bury, the Port Angeles, Wash., native currently working as one of the United States Agency for International Development’s field program officers, Engler is in the unique leadership position not only because of her age, but also her gender.
In Afghanistan, where age and gender determine one’s social positions, Engler and Bury have broken the mold – Engler advises combatant commanders as the non-commissioned-officer-in-charge of Preventive Medicine at the base on which she stays, and Bury works side-by-side with Afghanistan’s local leaders to help build the infrastructure and social programs the country will need as it surges forth toward reconstruction. In these roles, the women have not only proven their knack for success, they’ve also given those with whom they work a glimmer of hope for a more egalitarian world.
That glimmer of hope, according to the basic tenets of women’s rights organizations, begins with education and making a conscious effort to listen to women’s lived experiences to better understand their challenges and needs.
“I’ve had the honor of working with female engagement teams and attended a lot of women’s shuras [council meetings] here in Afghanistan,” Bury said. “A lot of it is listening – no one does that here. Someone actually listening to what women have to say is a new concept for a lot of people.”
Giving women and girls the opportunity for education is just as paramount, the two women said, mainly because they are living proofs that education opens doors and gives many women the opportunities they otherwise wouldn’t have gotten.
“Education has always been incredibly important in our family,” said Engler, who holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from Washburn University in Kansas. “A college education is a requirement in our family – and I didn’t realize that my mom had a graduate degree until I attended the same school she went to.”
For Bury, education has helped her not only to create more opportunities for herself, but also for others.
“I wanted to be a linguist when I was in college,” she said. “Then I got into international relations and wanted to go to countries where we were most needed to help them.”
While the women’s successes are a reflection of their hard work, the two also admitted they wouldn’t have gotten the opportunities they’d been afforded without the inspirations and help from well-meaning people in their lives, as well as the foremothers who fought for some of the very rights they enjoy – beginning with the ability to vote and the access to the public spheres that enabled them to get educated and pursuit the careers they desire.
“I can’t imagine how frustrating it must have felt for the women [who came before us],” Engler said. “They must have had so much willpower to keep going – I owe a lot of respect to them.”
Yet, she is also thankful the people in her own life and the soldiers who had to disguise themselves for a chance to contribute to their nation’s defense simply because of their gender.
“My grandmother has always been positive and encouraged me,” Engler said. “I am also a big fan of female soldiers who pretended to be men just so they could fight – I think that’s awesome. Those women were impressive – think about the guts and skills it would have taken.”
For Bury, the inspirations came not only from her family but also some professional women who broke the gender barriers by thrusting themselves into career fields that were traditionally male-dominated.
“My family has always been very supportive – my mom always encouraged me to do my best and shoot for the stars,” Bury said. “I also like Rachel Carson, who was a big name within the environmental movement in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Science was still very much a man’s game, and the fact that she broke into a man’s world is awesome.”
Yet, simply giving women opportunities isn’t enough. A shift in culture is just as important, and while the women understand the long-term commitment it takes to encourage entire cultures to respect and believe in women, both say the process begins with being good role models and examples to which other women and young girls can emulate.
When she was in northern Iraq, Engler often got the chance to go on humanitarian missions, and although her job did not require her to serve as the inspirer, she said she embraced the opportunities to take pictures with young girls and women because even such a simple act – seeing a woman taking her rightful place among her male counterparts – can serve as an inspirational moment.
“I loved taking pictures with them,” she said. “I was really happy to inspire someone, and would say it definitely had an impact in [sending the message] that a woman can be as strong as she wants to be.
“It plants the idea in their head that perhaps they can be as strong as they want to be or that perhaps even the daughters can be just as strong,” Engler added.
To help push that idea along, Engler said she would gladly come to a war zone if it means doing so will give the women and girls of Afghanistan a dash of hope and realization – no matter how small, that they have the potential to rise as far as their ability will carry them.
“If it helps plant that little seed, then I am supportive of my time here,” Engler said. “The minute it makes a difference to them, I am happy to be here.”
Living by examples and sending the implicit message that women can do anything when given the opportunity is one of the first steps toward helping women, Bury said, because while creating a better world for women is one of her passions, she also realizes that the challenges are many and prefers to stay grounded about how much progress can be made.
“I am a bit of a realist,” Bury said. “I’d just like to see a bit of progress within the next five or ten years – get the girls into school and perhaps they can take it from there.”
Like the women who contributed to their successes, Engler and Bury said they also have hopes for the women who will come after them, especially for their future daughters should they decide to have children one day.
“If I had kids, I would want them to be whatever they want to be, and show them that there is no limit because of their gender or otherwise,” Bury said. “Whatever you want to be, you can be it.”
While she shares the same wishes for her future children, Engler said she also wants to prepare them, through her own experiences, to be women who can be successful within male-dominated career fields if they decide they want to go into those fields.
“I don’t want them to have to deal with obvious in-your-face gender inequality situations,” Engler said. “I would want to prepare them so they aren’t shocked by it and know how to handle themselves.”
Part of the preparation, the women say, is by embracing feminist values – the beliefs in gender equality and that the ability to be successful is defined by one’s hard work and drive instead of one’s gender.
“I am proud to be a feminist,” Engler said. “There’s always a stigma to it – but it’s pretty well known in my unit that I am a feminist.”
Bury, too, said she is a feminist not only because of what empowerment has meant to her personally, but also because of what it means in the greater nation-building context.
“When you empower women, you reap rewards across generations,” Bury said. “Educated women will have educated children and healthy women will have healthier babies. Until [a nation’s] women have all the same rights and [responsibilities] as men, you’re not going to have a full population working toward bettering the country.
“I consider myself a feminist,” she added. “This is one of the few jobs where I can put that feminism into practice each day.”
| Date Taken: | 03.23.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 03.23.2012 09:54 |
| Story ID: | 85691 |
| Location: | KANDAHAR PROVINCE, AF |
| Web Views: | 755 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Serving in Afghanistan, women reflect on history, look toward future, by Marc Loi, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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