"No living man may kill me." "I am no man!"
This was just something I stumbled across while doing some research on women in the military, and thought it was awesome enough to share. Mostly because I never knew this before. I find it very interesting that after a country sustains horrible losses it's more likely to look to women as a source of badass.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_the_Great_Patriotic_War
I mean, these women made incredible sacrifices alongside the men and there were a lot of them. This is such a fascinating topic and I'm amazed it isn't mentioned more often. Remember, even today women in the military are kept mostly behind the front lines. In America, this has changed a bit with guerilla wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, as soldiers could be attacked at any time and women have adopted more of a combative role...but these Soviet women were fighting in the 40s, in hard combat conditions, and in a country that has historically been considered socially backwards by our standards. Admittedly, as soon as they didn't need the extra soldiers the Soviets reconsidered their policy (shame on you, Stalin), but female enlistments started to be accepted again during the height of the Cold War (mmmm....wonder why?). Still doesn't change the fact that these ladies did really hard things and did them well.
Now, the men in combat totaled 34,401,807, but considering both the fact that women were actually fighting as well as their contributions on the homefront...it's still pretty cool.
In other news...I dissected a giant grasshopper today. It was pretty cool.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_the_Great_Patriotic_War
I mean, these women made incredible sacrifices alongside the men and there were a lot of them. This is such a fascinating topic and I'm amazed it isn't mentioned more often. Remember, even today women in the military are kept mostly behind the front lines. In America, this has changed a bit with guerilla wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, as soldiers could be attacked at any time and women have adopted more of a combative role...but these Soviet women were fighting in the 40s, in hard combat conditions, and in a country that has historically been considered socially backwards by our standards. Admittedly, as soon as they didn't need the extra soldiers the Soviets reconsidered their policy (shame on you, Stalin), but female enlistments started to be accepted again during the height of the Cold War (mmmm....wonder why?). Still doesn't change the fact that these ladies did really hard things and did them well.
Now, the men in combat totaled 34,401,807, but considering both the fact that women were actually fighting as well as their contributions on the homefront...it's still pretty cool.
In other news...I dissected a giant grasshopper today. It was pretty cool.