AS Cixous

Today, while receiving security clearance for my Department of Defense Contractor identification card, I saw this poster hanging on the wall behind the male military officer processing my clearance:

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/CORIH/NA002240-COR-11_14~Gee-I-Wish-I-Were-a-Man-I-d-Join-the-Navy-Recruitment-Posters.jpg

I thought two things: Cixous and field-day. I’ll leave aside the obvious subjection of femininity and equality...okay, I won’t....“I wish I were a man”???? Come again? This recruitment poster is saying the exact opposite. Little girl does not want to be a man, let alone a soldier. The cross-dressed woman’s coy, kittenish pose is the exact opposite of a typical erect military bearing. The US Navy sells the idea that women wish they could have the honor of being male for the honor of being military soldiers. Yet the underlying message, of course, is that men are the only ones who can “do it.” Men are the honored, the privileged, and the capable. And look at this enticing girl peeking over her shoulder, pelvis thrust out, playing dress-up – just look at what big, burly men have to protect. Isn’t she adorable? So sign up and save the little gal, it’s not like she can even lift a gun.

On a more positive note, this poster does more than just rile my feminine feathers; it also promotes Cixous’ idea that for a woman “becoming-woman, she has not erased the bisexuality latent in the girl as in the boy” (160). You would rarely see, and usually for humor only, a man dressed in women’s clothing in an advertisement. And never in a military advertisement. Men are men -- even meterosexuals make sure it is known that they are “NOT gay.” Girl stuff belongs to girls only, there’s no room for the female in male (as evident by the words – female incorporates the masculine root, whereas male stands alone). Here, woman is dressed as man, stating a desire to be a man, in an ad that stylistically supports Cixous’ definition of bisexuality as the incorporation of the other. The woman embraces with her physical stance her femininity, while proclaiming a plausible longing for otherness. The recruitment poster annoys me because – big shocker -- I don’t have penis envy. But I can appreciate how it supports the notion that fluidity of other and self is more readily available within the female gender. At least I’m not blatantly expected to suck it up and “Be a man and do it.”