this game my father would come home in
his Navy white uniform and I would stand
at my bedroom door
private blossom reporting for inspection
sir and then my dad would return my
salute he would come inside and look
around and then he’d come back with his
report private blossom you still need to
put your shoes in the closet and pick up
your Barbie dolls yes sir he would
return my salute again he’d go
downstairs and I would go back to
cleaning
I loved the playfulness and the rules of
this game which is why it was funny to
find myself breaking the rules ten years
later while ripping my mop gear off
during army basic training the MOPP gear
is outerwear that you put on to protect
yourself in the event of a chemical
attack it’s heavy it’s made out of
charcoal and it makes everything that
you do about ten degrees hotter so on
this day during basic training we’re
outside and it’s in Alabama in August so
it’s already about a hundred degrees and
then we’re in full MOPP gear which
includes a gas mask so we’re breathing
in our own hot air and everybody is
sweating profusely and all of a sudden
it feels like I have needles running
down my arms and I start to freak out so
I stopped back to my pup tent thinking
I’m by myself and I start ripping off my
mop here complaining all this stuff’s so
disgusting turns out I wasn’t actually
alone my senior drill sergeant had just
walked up blossom what are you doing
taking off my mop Gary senior drill
sergeant why are you doing that because
I because I got hot senior drill
sergeant uh-huh I glanced at him and I
can see from the small smile on his face
that he’s actually amused I’m busted but
this one is not a big deal
thanks God I do a bunch of push-ups and
promise not to do it again most of my
memories of the four years that I served
in the Army are like this one they’re
light hearted except for one year what I
don’t have any memories like that and
before I take you to that year I’ll give
you a little bit of background
my father was a naval officer when I was
growing up and he and my mom and I lived
on bases in Saudi Arabia in Japan my
mother would tell me stories of her
skydiving while stationed in the
Philippines in the Air Force I have a
grandfather who flew Air Force One for
George HW Bush and I have another
grandfather who served on the USS Hornet
the list of my family members who served
is long so when I left basic training I
was excited about all the camaraderie
and the feeling that I just conquered
some big challenge and I was proud to be
going to Fort Carson Colorado and
carrying my family’s legacy forward but
there were two things that immediately
caught my attention when I arrived the
first one was this comment the men
you’re about to work with aren’t used to
working with women I filed that under
uh-oh but we’ll come back to it the
second thing that I noticed was that I
was getting hit on all the time and you
might think like that doesn’t sound so
bad but if you imagine you’re getting in
your car out of your car going to the
grocery store going for a walk it’s
happening literally everywhere you go
that it was it felt like I was a blank
movie screen sometimes that desire was
being projected onto it was happening so
much in fact I started wearing a wedding
ring in the first few weeks thinking
maybe that was gonna stop it turns out
that little piece of fake gold made no
difference whatsoever so I developed a
couple of coping strategies the first
one was what I call defensive flirting
some of you may have seen this one
before
flirting at its best is an exchange of
energy it’s playful creative sexy edgy
defensive flirting is exchanging just
enough of that energy so that when the
moment came that I could slide away I
could do so without it seeming abrupt
and without pissing off the guy because
I learned really quickly that option was
always on the table
the second coping strategy that I
developed was to simply become
stone-faced no open door no friendliness
some complicated
and it works but it also became part of
a troubling pattern for me throughout
that year there were times when simply
sliding away or becoming stone-faced
weren’t options one day I was working in
the mess hall checking people in for
lunch and a couple of people came up to
talk to me and we talked about what we
do what our jobs are and I say that I’m
54 chemical which an army speak means 54
Bravo which an army speak means that I’m
chemical these guys say that their
helicopter pilots and then they ask if
myself and a friend would like to go for
a ride I’m the adventurous sort so the
answer to do you want to go for a
helicopter ride is always gonna be yes
the four of us meet up we put on our
headphones so we can hear each other
above the noise and I’m watching
fascinated as they flip switches and
push buttons and I feel the world of the
blades above a spinning faster faster
faster faster faster and then suddenly
there’s that exhilarating experience of
leaving the earth behind us and I’m just
settling into it when I hear through the
headphones how do you like to have sex I
bet she likes to be on top because she
wants to be in control now she wants it
from behind and I am completely frozen I
don’t know how to handle this situation
so I start trying to change the subject
what’s that out there how fast does this
thing go how often do you guys fly and
they ignore it and they just continue
with this line of questioning until
finally we let my friend and I we
hightail it then there were the guys
that I mentioned that I worked with on a
regular basis these guys would say
things so matter-of-factly like women
can’t be trusted
women don’t work as hard as men and how
can you trust something that bleeds
seven days a month and doesn’t die
linking our trustworthiness to our
biology there were the times of the
occasional growth being forced kissing
I’ll spare you the details during this
time one of the women that I served with
decided that she wanted to take it to
leadership because she was dealing with
it too and I watched her walk up to our
commanding officer
hopefull maybe something was gonna
change the conversation between them
lasted about a minute she turned around
and walked back to me her face now tight
and I asked what happened and she with a
look of disgust said he basically just
told me boys will be boys the message
was received we were on our own so I
began to adopt personality traits that I
associated with masculinity tough
unemotional laugh at jokes that are
actually who that was pretty offensive I
was trying to seem like a man to the men
around me so they wouldn’t see me as
different I mean this of course was not
the result look at me even in baggy
camouflage it’s obvious I’m a woman the
result was that I was pushing down
emotions in service of feeling safe I
began to live in this box and inside the
box was anger and fear and shame outside
the box was vulnerability and empathy
and nurturing and joy and ease all this
stuff that makes life so worth living
and it would only get farther away from
me as a year progressed and then I
connected with somebody and he and I had
a great time so we started dating and
there was a lot of joking around in the
beginning and he was a soldier on the
same base and one night we went to a
party off-base and we were walking back
just the two of us at night to my car
and all of a sudden I found myself
slammed up against a wall and I was
stunned what just happened and why he
would later bite me in the face and slam
my head against a car window it was
humiliating and the shame began to rise
as for as long as I can remember I have
identified as someone who is strong
independent and rebellious these are
core to my identity and they were all
being violated I didn’t feel like I
belonged anywhere in my life including
inside myself and the thing about shame
is that it is possessive shame tells you
to keep secrets it tells you to isolate
yourself and at its worst it
brings a lethal absence of hope and one
night between the criticisms and the
abuse and the lack of understanding of
how to manage all of the emotions that I
was having I just needed a way out so I
took a handful of bright blue sleeping
pills a big glass of water and I went to
sleep and I woke up in the middle of the
night to find out I was slapping my
hands against the wall to make the
stinging pain stop so I called my
boyfriend and he took me to the hospital
the military doctor took one look at me
knew it was a suicide attempt and
decided he was gonna have my stomach
pumped even though by that point it
wasn’t medically necessary
now stomach pump is no walk in the park
you’re having a tube stuffed down your
throat while your body is trying to kick
it back out till it’s finally over I’m
laying there now recovering from a
stomach pump and not feeling even this
much better about my life and in walks a
military chaplain here to help this guy
looks like he’s ended by the 60s kind of
shuffles over to the hospital bed leans
over pushes his glasses up on his nose
and says so what’s your problem what’s
my problem I didn’t even know how to
articulate what was wrong for myself
much less share it with anybody else I
certainly wasn’t gonna start with that
guy with that approach so I turned my
head to the wall and I just stare
feeling so alone and I overhear him
describing me as defiant that year in
Colorado taught me that we must rethink
masculinity currently masculinity tells
young boys you cannot be like a girl you
can’t be gay and you have to man up so
let’s break that down to not be like a
girl means what that you’re not allowed
to be empathetic nurturing or
compassionate we’ve taken those traits
and then feminized them and made them
wrong but when we do that we disconnect
boys from a part of their own inner life
and to not be gay means what then if
you’re straight and a boy that you’re
not allowed to have emotional intimacy
or physical effects
with other boys this creates an
isolation that perpetuates itself into
adulthood and even when you’re being
told to man up you’re being told to
dominate over your emotions you’re being
taught how to use your power over your
emotions over other people rather than
being taught how to use your power for
something for other people for your own
good we all men and women are
responsible for expanding the definition
of masculinity to include vulnerability
emotional intimacy and physical
affection as sources of strength for men
but right now this is the impact
masculinity is having on the military 20
percent of all women serving in the
Armed Forces are sexually assaulted by
the men they serve with it’s not just
women in one year twenty thousand men
were sexually assaulted by the men they
serve with should sexual assault be
listed as a hazard of the job might go
to war check might get raped check sign
on the dotted line please and the impact
of this is going far beyond the military
it’s Harvey Weinstein bill cosby louis
c.k Chris Rose Matt Lauer the list just
keeps getting longer and it includes US
presidents sure we could blame this on
biology well it’s just how we’re wired
it’s just aa stirone or we can blame it
on mental health
those people are just crazy or we can
consciously choose to create a world in
which on a daily basis we unleash the
fullest expression of kindness and
empathy from our girls and our boys and
here are some questions we need to start
asking ourselves for the men in the
audience what does being a man mean to
you where did you get the idea from from
your father brother peers porn
what mask are you wearing
you’re wearing the mask of toughness
like I did the mask of humor you’ve
always got a joke the mask of
competition you’ve always got to be
better than everybody else what do you
believe would happen if you took off
that mask and let people see you how
often do you share your feelings with
the boys in your life how comfortable
are you crying in front of the boys in
your life or in front of anyone for that
matter for the women in the audience
what assumptions do you make about men
that keep the conversation from going
deeper I’ve done a lot of work with
women and I hear some of the assumptions
they don’t care they think they’re
entitled to whatever they want and even
if there’s a kernel of truth in that
there’s still more to the story and if
we’re going to improve it we have to
collectively think deeper about these
challenges in the years since the army
as I’ve worked to remove my own masks
and continue to do it and I’ve worked
with men and women in companies I’ve
come to see that when we remove our
masks we hit this beautiful chance to
turn loneliness into connection
assumption into understanding and fear
into love
imagine what would become possible if
boys were allowed to have the same highs
and lows that girls are imagine what
would be possible if adults
intentionally created safe spaces for
boys to share their feelings with each
other imagine what would be possible if
instead of being told to man up boys
were taught how to reach out to a friend
ask your father your brother your friend
your coworker what’s behind your mask
his answer may surprise you
and it may just save his life thank you you