When Words Reopen Wounds: The Cost of Demeaning Women Veterans
- Julie Jewels Smoot
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
There are moments when a single comment does more damage than years of silence.
When a man dismisses a woman’s military service by calling her “woke” or a “DEI hire,” he is not expressing an opinion. He is participating in the same culture that devalues, erases, and disposes of women—especially women who were harmed while serving.
When that comment comes from another veteran, and worse, a family member, it lands as betrayal layered on top of trauma.
For women who served in the Navy and were raped by fellow service members, victim-blamed, emotionally abused, retaliated against, and discarded by the institution they served, these remarks are not abstract. They are not political. They are re-injuring.
The Lie at the Core of Military Misogyny
There is a lie that still circulates openly: that military service only counts if it comes from a male body.
As if courage requires a penis.
As if service is measured by anatomy.
As if women exist in the military only as support staff, bodies to endure harm, or problems to be explained away.
This lie tells women veterans that their service was conditional. That their presence was a mistake. That if they were assaulted, blamed, or retaliated against, it was simply the cost of being there.
This is not ignorance.
It is entitlement wrapped in contempt.
What These Comments Actually Do
Words like “woke” and “DEI hire” are not neutral descriptors. They are tools.
They:
erase lived experience
invalidate service
dismiss survival
and reinforce the culture that enabled abuse
For survivors, these comments don’t stay in conversation. They move straight into the nervous system. The body recognizes the threat immediately. Shock returns. Safety disappears. Years of hard-won healing can unravel in seconds.
This is not emotional fragility. It is a trauma response to being dehumanized—again.
When Pride Is Taken, Not Lost
It can take years for a woman veteran to reclaim even a fragment of pride after military sexual trauma and institutional betrayal.
Some send their medals away.
Some stop identifying as veterans.
Some never speak of their service again.
When a dismissive comment destroys what little pride remains, it is not because that pride was weak.
It is because it was never protected.
Silence Is Not Complicity—It Is a Boundary
There comes a point where explaining oneself becomes self-harm.
Choosing to no longer engage in:
military conversations
political discussions
documentaries
symbols
or shared spaces with those who demean your service
is not bitterness.
It is self-preservation.
No one is owed your story.
No one is entitled to your labor.
No one gets access to your experience after they’ve shown contempt for it.
This Is Not About Politics
Calling women veterans “woke” or “DEI hires” is a way to dodge accountability.
It avoids confronting:
sexual violence within the military
retaliation against survivors
misogyny embedded in command culture
and the long-term cost borne by women who spoke up
These comments protect systems—not people.
To Women Veterans
If your body shut down after being dismissed…
If your pride evaporated in the face of contempt…
If you chose silence because speaking no longer felt safe…
Your service was real. Your survival matters.
Your refusal to engage is not weakness—it is wisdom.
You did not fail the military.
The military failed you.
And stepping away from people, conversations, and symbols that diminish you is not erasure.
It is claiming what remains.
A Grounded Closing
If this page stirred your body—tightened your breath, pulled you into vigilance, or left you feeling exposed—pause here.
You do not need to fix anything.
You do not need to make meaning.
You do not need to respond.
Let your shoulders drop. Let your feet feel the floor.
Allow one slow exhale to pass through you.
Sound does not ask for explanation or proof.
It meets the nervous system where it is and offers steadiness.
If your body needs a place to settle, you may find support in the listening space Nothing Is Required of You, created for moments when words have done enough.
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