Real Life Activism against Military Spouses
But how far is too far? It’s easy to take the ‘ignore it, it’s just words’ approach. But it’s an altogether different scenario when people actively try to discriminate and eliminate opportunities, targeting a specific group of people.
Case in point, a veteran believed it would be acceptable to attack military spouses in a professional forum organized by a civilian company. Vicious in his remarks, he freely used the word dependa to describe the military spouses in the group, which the organization had 1) asked to apply to their program and 2) been vetted and 3) accepted into their program; all of which was created because of the Joining Forces initiative to help professional military spouses and veterans. Looking at the definition of dependa, this criteria certainly doesn’t apply to the women he was attacking in this forum.
He’s not alone. Many veterans have voiced that opportunities should be for veterans only, because they deserve it. How about those servicemembers who paid for their spouse’s education and encouraged them to make their way in the world, all while fighting frequent PCS moves and career ending jobs? Surely, these same service members would happily give their place to their spouse if he or she qualified for the opportunity.
Attacks in business and professional forums aren’t new or unique. The biggest issue is when the myth becomes fact and people make it their mission to ask organizations to actively discriminate against military spouses by eliminating opportunities for them in the civilian sector, a twisted form of social justice vigilantism.
Let’s not forget that when military spouses do well, servicemembers do well. It’s a bigger pot of money to spend in their household which translates into more opportunities for military kids. Don’t military kids deserve more opportunities?
It’s ironic that veterans are trying to abolish opportunities which ultimately end up hurting his fellow brothers and sisters in arms. It’s not serving anyone when service members use their military service as proof that their opinion is fact, they’ve bought into the dependa mythology that military spouses are a disease. It’s unfortunate when discrimination goes this far.
