anyone feel uncomfortable about Military Wives Choir?

yy, makes sense. am lolling a little though - it only took 60 years for the uk to interpret the results and introduce new decompression policy

ah ok, sgm. i thought it was gulf stuff. my mistake. (ther is mental helath stuff that came out of the gulf, but not sure if it touched on dv)

i don't disagree, quod. but i don't mind donations that might bolster the support network. it's a typical and over-used get-out clause - donate to charity so that the govt don't have to provide the required support.

i have no problem with the donations. i don't like that they are necessary.

Good analysis Quodlibet.

You're right, it's all very fake and regressive.

Right - I'll call a spade a spade:

I find it disconcerting partly because I am reading it as part of a larger cultural effort to try to get us to all engage in some cod rehash of the Blitz spirit. All this 'we're all in it together crap', let's distract attention with a lovely royal wedding, let's get bigfatToryKirstie Allsopp on the TV 'make do and mending', come on ladies, back in the kitchen, etc etc.

If you can culturally condition the population to feel like we're all knuckling down in a brave effort (and look! Brave Soldiers! Let's wave a hanky at them!) then hopefully the population won't notice that actually we're being shafted by these Tory cunts, and what is happening now is absolutely nothing like the Blitz. It's essentially a rebranding of the economic crisis and a cover for the Tory response to it. Military Wives singing sentimental songs is just one more part of this picture as I see it.

would really love a link if you find it, sgm. save me looking!

it wasn't introduced to the reserve community at first either, and i had to stamp my feet hard locally. of all the people that need the most support post op tour, it's the reservists and their families. the reservists go straight back to being a postman or whatever, and their wives don't have even the support network that exists on base. they might not even know any other military families, let alone anyone who's just spent 4mos in afghanistan.

talk about your average culture shock. at least the regulars know they are within a community that understands. your average reservist might have to return to a workplace where (a bit like on mn) there is a huge hostility to 'illegal wars' and the military in general.

the same programme has been introduced in the uk, sgm. (to my knowledge it hasn't been cut yet). so all returning troops have a decompression period. they have also introduced a compulsory day back in work at a slightly later point during potl, where all of the mental health flags are re-covered and support networks and avenues gone over and over.

guess who are the ones that whine about this? the wives. understandable that you just want your dh home, but sometimes you have to play the long game for everyone's benefit. so it may not just be cost cutting. there may have been a groundswell of opinion from spouses that they didn't want it, which made it socially acceptable to grab this as a convenient savings measure. even on forces sweethearts on here i've had to argue that this isn't to piss families off, it's for everyone's benefit.

(it's also an attempt to get any ptsd concerns raised. again there's a reluctance to report within military community as seen as sign of weakness etc etc)

i've also heard lots of anecdotal stuff about anti-d's as well (someone mentioned upthread) but again, haven't seen any research. just a broad picture of how many wives at any one time in any one place are prescribed. and again, only the ones that will admit it. or passing comment by doctor.

i also suspect that without digging around, you won't be able to find them. it isn't something that will be broadcast.

i should also note in the interests of fairness that dv works both ways in the military, with obvious statistical differences. and military men are less likely to report suffering dv at the hands of their spouses, even than their male civilian counterparts. as of course are the wives, who may be far from home with in theory nowhere to go, and no immediate support network. so dv stats will be undoubtedly under-reported even in comparision with civ stats (noting that they also are under-reported).

I've heard the DV rates for Aldershot are very very high compared to other towns without such a huge military presence, but haven't got the numbers, sorry.

a subscription to 'armed forces and society' would also keep you abreast...

try RAND - they have pretty much everything. don't know it off the top of my head, but seems likely. divorce and sep stats certainly higher. might be something on the kings website too, their mil research dept often has links to uk stuff.

i doubt there has been any research into d&v for the uk mil. but us or cdn stuff should be easy enough to find.

if uk stats exist, they would have been collected by agency such as ssafa who would just be keeping a tally of referrals for different reasons, and then someone would have done a comparison with 'average' uk population of similar age/ wage. that would be my guess anyway.

the us does a lot of research though. anyone interested can start with mary segal (and her dh who i have forgotten the name of david?). or just check out RAND with appropriate search keywords. loads and loads.

as an aside, anyone who digs up the sexual harassment stats for the military might like to know that the questions are deeply subjective and flawed, and actually don't give much of a picture of anything, but the way they write them up is tragically hilarious. sort of 'harassment goes down this year by 10%!!! woo hoo!!! and then you look at the actual stats which claim 70% of females have experienced what they consider to be sexual harassment by colleagues. woo fecking hoo indeed. (i paraphrase, and haven't see the most recent one, no idea what they claim the actual stats are currently, but usually they make me want to alternately gouge my eyes out or grab the nearest rifle and go on a rampage whilst screeching 'only 70%%%!!!!')

apols for random rant. as you were.

Do you have a link for D&V stats?

When it comes to Forces children and schools, the Forces don't seem to know how many households they have (especially if non-marital), so it would be interesting to see how the counting has been done for this.

As I understand it domestic violence is at twice the rate in the military as it is in the rest of the population.

I don't think this choir is a women-only space. It's got Gareth in it, leading it from the front.

This is putting women back in their box as appendages of men. If you can couple marriage with the uber-patriarchal institution of the military, all the better. Patriarchy squared.

If they hadn't been called that, no one would have had a clue who they were ... it's a means to an end. Surely there are bigger fish to fry?

FNP - it's why I wouldn't get involved with someone who had chosen this for their life... it's just not a lifestyle I'd choose to live :( Marginalised and terrified of them not coming home .... life's hard enough without that.

unfortunately, the services get a lot of practise in the whole marriage breakdown piece. statistically more than in comparable civilian terms.

maybe that's another reason why the term 'wife' is so popular on the pr front.

frosty, you wouldn't have been expelled from the base.

your father would have been moved into single service accommodation (the mess), and you and your mother would have been given three months before you had to leave the base, and a great deal of support to find civilian accommodation.

this of course, would only have been evident if your mother had known the rules and been offered that support, but as it was a secret (potentially because of something your father said?) then neither she nor you would have known that.

ssafa would have been with her to offer advice. the services even their own accommodation in the cotswolds which is often used as a halfway house in the case of marriage breakdowns and move to civilian life.

and FNP. quite. you have eloquently said what i was attempting to say earlier, but quite often i am so angry about it all that it verges on incoherence.

Great post, frozennorthpole

I was a forces brat.

When my mum was in military hospital, having her babies, her wristband/ notes read "wife of (my father's number.)"

Similarly, when my brother was in hospital, his notes/ ID said "dependent of (xyz)"

When my parents split, it had to be a secret until Mum found a new house - because had it been public, we would have been expelled from the base.

Mum was basically an accessory to my father (an officer.) It was a dull, depressing life for her. I'm glad she got out.

FWIW, my father was deployed in a war zones (first gulf war). I find the sentimentality irritating, and the expectation on these women depressing. Imagine if they didn't feel like being "brave." Or even staying with the husband (infidelity and abuse was rife among the families on base.)

I find it all very sad, actually. Fair play if it's the life you want, but as FNP says, women who don't conform to the brave little wifey role get squished PDQ.

FNP, great post. Your life sounds very hard. I hope things improve for you at some point. And I don't mean that as tritely as it probably sounds.

I'm uncomfortable about it as I don't like the song and don't think they are very good.