“I consider myself a ‘protect.’ It means that I’m someone who’s willing to protect other people. In a bad situation, if I have to, I’ll step in and take physical injuries or whatever to protect another person who’s important to me.

“One time, when I was living with this woman, someone decided to point a gun at her. They were perfectly good bullets. And the gun had a perfectly good firing pin. But when I put myself between the gun and her, it didn’t go off. The gun didn’t fire.

“It wasn’t a scary thing to me. It was just something I felt that I had to do. You don’t hit a woman. You don’t point a gun at a woman. You just don’t harm a woman. I’ve been doing things like that my whole life.”

Why weren’t you afraid?
“It’s called having balls. It’s called standing up for what you believe in.”

— John Brinkley

The post He was prepared to take a bullet for woman appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I grew up in a very traditional Mexican household, where the father was the one who provided and the mother stayed home. That continued until I was 11 or 12, when my mother started working to help with the bills.

“My father was always a very hard worker, and he always treated me and my sister well. But whenever it came to doing things like yard work, he would tell us that we had to learn how to do everything a man could do. He said that we were just as strong and just as capable as men. But when it came to doing more domestic work, like cooking and cleaning the house, he wasn’t as supportive of making our brother do those things as he was of making me and my sister do them.

“It’s funny; I told my father that him being so old-fashioned made me a feminist because he taught me I can do everything a man can do. He says I’m really smart, I have a good head on my shoulders, and he trusts what I think about it. He doesn’t necessarily agree with it, but we have a laugh.

“I feel like the term feminism is often misinterpreted. Being a feminist does not mean you’re a man-hater. To me, essentially, feminism recognizes the equality of the sexes. Women are human beings, and we deserve equal rights to men.

“Men have centuries of ground ahead of us. But in such a short amount of time, women have created a lot of stepping stones for themselves to break so many glass ceilings. It’s really important to learn about those stories of successful women, and for women of my generation to feel empowered and chase our dreams, too.”

— Kaelyn Anaya

Kaelyn, a library technician at Sterling Municipal Library, recently started the Baytown Feminist Book Club. During the coronavirus pandemic, members meet weekly online. They are currently reading “The Female Man,” by Joanna Russ. Learn more on the Facebook page.

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• Her mom on coronavirus testing front lines

The post Young feminist chases her dreams appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“It began in college. I had a class called Sex and Gender in Latin America. It was talking about the machismo culture and what women in those countries are going through, not really being protected or having a voice for themselves. I remember reading these books and sitting in class discussions, and I was like, it sounds a lot like the environment in the military.

“A lot of people don’t realize what motherhood in the military is like. We don’t catch a break. When we go to work and we come back, we’re still working at home. We don’t have anybody to pick up the slack. There are a lot of amazing military wives, and I give them kudos. They help get their husbands through that time. But we, on the other hand, are mother and soldier.

“One of my battle buddies went to Afghanistan and almost had her children taken away from her for abandonment because she went to war. So what you’re saying is that a man can go fight for his country and leave his children with his wife. But when it’s the mother … It’s like, where’s the respect and the voice for that person? 

“It’s also no secret that there’s a lot of sexual trauma and domestic abuse going on in the military. There is some progress being made. They’re taking measures to try to alleviate it. But it’s still happening way too often.

“I’ve been collecting stories from women soldiers who have been brave enough to share what they’ve been through. My goal is to put them together in a book to provide a better understanding of what’s really going on, and to offer some insight and empathy for women in the military.

“We’re not just dealing with the effects of war. We also have a fight within the fight. We want to trust the men to our left and right. But they’re hurting us, too. I’m not saying that everybody does this. But there’s still an epidemic. It’s just this sad thing.” 

— Erica Salazar

Erica served as an intelligence analyst in the Army. She was deployed twice to Afghanistan, once as a soldier and later as a civilian contractor.

Related:

• Mom rebuilding relationships after military career

• ‘Honestly, I feel like nothing can break me’

The post A voice for women who endure abuse in the military appeared first on The Baytown Project.