Sulagna Misra’s previous work for The Toast can be found here.
First things first, let’s be realists: pretending to be a man and joining the army is no easy task. You will experience strife, fear, anxiety, enemy combatants, hell (which is what war is), and worst of all, character development. Tread carefully, and use this guide to direct you on your journey.
What is your reason for donning a uniform and heading out to war? You must have a mission with conviction if you’re going to have the mental strength to get away with this.
1. My father has been drafted and I’d rather have him around than put up with this “honor” business.
2. My brother was drafted and the army bloody lost him. That’s unacceptable to put it lightly, so I’m going out there and getting him.
3. My boyfriend or friend has been drafted and he’s just not going to last out there without me keeping a lookout for him.
4. My girlfriend has decided she’s going and we come as a set.
5. I have a religious calling to save this country and I will do whatever it takes to fulfill it, even dressing in menswear.
6. I have a patriotic duty to my country and these tits aren’t going to stop me from defending it. I’ll just bind them up, shall I?
7. I mean, the prophecy said “No man can kill him,” and I am no man.
How are you going to get there? Make sure you have a boy’s name at the ready!
1. I’ll cut off all my hair, steal some of my dad’s armor, and ride off into the sunrise with our farm horse.
2. I’ll cut off all my hair, steal some of my brother’s old clothes, stuff some socks in my trousers, and walk up to the conscription desk.
3. I’ll get a soldier drunk, steal his things, then cut off all my hair and use it to make a manly mustache before joining the nearest army base.
4. I’ll cut off all my hair, set fire to the madhouse they stuffed me in, rob some man on the street and wear his clothes before finding the nearest conscription desk.
5. I’ll cut off all my hair, ask the saints I speak to where to go, and make my way there.
6. I’ll put my hair in a stylish man bun, grab a uniform from the nearest dead soldier, and ask to join the army. Perhaps I’ll claim amnesia.
7. I don’t need to cut off my hair! Look, if I put them into a series of small braids, I can fit them into the helmet in such a way that they will spring forth in glorious triumph when I reveal myself and skewer my demonic enemy while yelling in righteous fervor.
How are you going to pass yourself off? “I see you have a sword! I have one too. They’re very manly and tough!” is not going to cut it.
1. Um — fix things, cook outdoors, deepen my voice, spit? Crap. It’s going to take a miracle to get me into the army. Can someone please send me a miracle?
2. Loosen my hips and work on my strut. And buy lots of back-up socks.
3. People don’t really notice, on the whole.
4. Glare at people long enough that they get so nervous and forget any kind of dissonance they might feel.
5. First I’ll fail at everything during training to lower everyone’s expectations. Then I’ll learn to kick ass and everyone will respect me for it.
6. Cultivate a sense of mystery by wrapping myself in charming mannerisms like glasses wearing or coffee drinking, to excuse any sort of oddness as eccentricities.
7. Keep my helmet on and communicate solely through gesture and constant deadpan.
What are the extra tools at your disposal, being in this unique position?
1. I am facing two threats: the uncertain death of being in the army and certain death upon recognition as a woman. This keeps me sharper than the average soldier.
2. My spying abilities, if needed, have double the potential. In fact, one could even say I’m a double agent, spying on men only in the company of other men. Hm, I’m going to have to write a paper on this when I get back.
3. If a man comes charging at me, I can use his weight against him by simply sidestepping the fool. Also, If born a woman, I have a lower center of gravity, which means my kicks have, shall we say, an extra ‘kick’ to them. No, we shan’t say that? Ahem. So sorry.
4. A woman’s intuition, cultivated from a lifetime of society forcing me to gather clues on the people around me to sort out threats to my person.
5. God is on my side.
6. Unlike men, I haven’t been brought up with the idea that violence is an effective solution and am more likely to use different means necessary to achieve my objectives, like shooting a rocket to cause an avalanche or using espionage to gather enemy information.
7. The element of surprise; no one expects a woman. Also, I can usually survive a kick to the nads.
What are some things to watch out for?
1. So, I definitely like that man and he definitely likes me but obviously nothing can come of it when I’m dressed like this. Maybe after I win the war….
2. Actually, guys in the army on the whole are really hot. I’ll be in my bunk.
3. I have male friends now! They’re actually pretty nice. Just have to work on slowly undoing their patriarchal ideas of women and relationships. Perhaps through song!
4. This captain is total chickenshit and clearly just bullying me because he’s a jerkface. Hopefully he runs away before we enter the battlefield.
5. Wait, other women might’ve had the same idea as me. And they may be in my unit. And we may be playing chicken to see who will reveal themselves first.
6. Apparently I’m really attractive to women as a man. Hijinks are ensuing!
7. Damn, my male friend’s here and he could totally tell I was up to something earlier. I’m just going to have to keep my helmet on.
Alright, why are you really doing this?
1. I wanted to look in the mirror and see something worthwhile.
2. Protecting my family and friends means more to me than my own safety. What do we have but each other?
3. I don’t trust men to finish this war.
4. I don’t trust men.
5. I’m on a mission from God.
6. God, I was just so sick of the patriarchal bullshit. I’m hoping combining cross-dressing with world-saving will cause traditional values to disintegrate.
7. I’m not made for sewing and marriage. I’m made for using complex military strategy to defeat the enemy and defend my people. Frankly, I’m made for greatness, and if it means killing the secret weapon demon of the enemy to get my name in the history books, then I am more than willing to do it.
Remember, if you’re a woman, you might actually win this war and save the nation/world/galaxy – you just might have to reveal your gender as a result. What are you going to do with your hard-won, newfound power?
1. I’ll become a national advisor to the ruler to work on efforts to rebuild infrastructure in my nation/world/galaxy.
2. The world is not ready. I’m fine keeping up the ruse in order to protect the women who are sure to covertly join the army after me.
3. I’ll work on better education efforts for both men and women, because the patriarchy hurts us all.
4. I’ll leverage my good deeds to become comfortable, with enough money to last me a lifetime and a home where I will feel safe and live well.
5. It was an honor simply to serve and save my people. I’ll probably just go home and get married.
6. I’ll act as a diplomatic envoy to other countries, unique in my ability to discuss both their military efforts and the improvement of the lives of women in their country.
7. I shall become queen, and reign with an iron fist and a gentle, knowing smile.
Tags: cartoons, feminism, movies, sulagna misra, war
Hands up, everyone who read “I’m Deborah Sampson” in a battered 70s library edition and was really horrified when she was wounded and a soldier stuck his HAND in her SHIRT and discovered her BOOBS. WHOA. That was a lot for a nine-year-old to take in.
I know about her from Liberty’s Kids (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bbOJhr_37E), so THAT story didn’t come up. I hope he bought her a drink (because how else to numb the pain of a steel ball bullet).
I have no idea if it’s true or not because I don’t think any of the age-appropriate biographies of Sampson went into the chest-heaving, lusty details, but I feel like the expression on his face must have been a really great and confounded one.
Mulan, Monstrous Regiment, Joan of Arc, Twelfth Night, WHO ARE THE REMAINING THREE. Commentariat! Help!
Eowyn!
7 is Eowyn in Lord of the Rings
Hahaha I didn’t know I accidentally referenced Twelfth Night! This is what I get for only knowing the Amanda Bynes versions of the classics…
The others include a mixture of Leela from “War is the H-Word,” Deborah Sampson, Eowyn, and the Alanna Lioness book series. I love me some “women dressing up as men to fight the good fight” stories.
I salute you and will accompany you should you ever visit Illyria High School and the entire cast of She’s The Man.
I just thought they were all characters from Monstrous Regiment, which honestly works pretty well.
Same. I thought at least three of them were MR characters, but now I have a list of other books to check out instead! Excellent.
Mollie/Melvin Bean, from “Guns of the South” (Harry Turtledove), is definitely in some of these.
I may have squealed with excitement over the Monstrous Regiment references.
That book is a pretty good bet for near continuous giggling for me, especially as the war shit gets more real.
I think one is Eowyn from LOTR. Regardless, this piece is incredible.
Heck yeah, Monstrous Regiment!
If you want to join the army just chop off your hair!
Makeover? Take off those glasses and ditch the ponytail = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaqF-7v9BtY
Wait, what happened to Joan of Arc at the end there? Did you just send Joan home to get married?
Ugh, I don’t know how I feel about this, because I much prefer my Joan of Arc alive, so this is a good thing, right?!
…But I am not super into her going back to the farm and getting married off and forgotten (Charles VII was clearly not going to do anything to help her out).
Basically I have too many emotions about the Maid of Orléans.
It’s a really interesting question what she would have done if she hadn’t been killed…if Charles refused to keep her around I suspect she would have become a nun or something. But speculating about an older Joan feels like imagining a fictional character. She only ever had the chance to be on fire for God and France with the first fierceness of youth; once the war was over, who knows how she might have grown older?
This is very true, particularly given how tied together politics and religion were in her personal ideology. I agree that it might have been the religious life for her.
But, if we are going full on imagination of a fictional character, I like to imagine her transplanted to a more modern era, adjusting well, and channeling her passion for Charles VII into her own political campaign for World President.
I LOVE Joan of Arc! I actually wanted to suggest that, for each question, any option is a viable choice. Like you can go 2, 5, 4, 7, etc.– all are possible scenarios for the stories I’ve read. That option is based on some accounts that say the real Hua Mulan, after 10 productive years in the Chinese army, went home and got married and lived her life, to the surprise of her fellow soldiers.
That makes me so happy, and I was actually thinking that with how they were numbered- it could act as kind of a mix and match of kickass histories of women who went to war. Now I want to print everything out on slips of paper and make a party game of this. Maybe it can over at the office holiday get-together.
OOOH!! Let me know if you do!!
And Maxine Hong Kingston cited (or made up?) a version in which she’s still on campaign while pregnant, she just has her armor belly hammered out so she looks like a big Falstaffian dude.
This is fantastic. Monstrous Regiment! Eowyn!
4. My girlfriend has decided she’s going and we come as a set.
I need this story. Which is it???
It’s definitely implied in Monstrous Regiment but I don’t know if we ever really know for sure about Tonker and Lofty.
We can know for sure in our hearts.
Oh yeah, that’s definitely what’s happening.
But where is Leela?
Click here to watch man-punching in action!
Yeeees EOWYN AS BENEVOLENT QUEEN THAT IS HOW THE STORY SHOULD HAVE ENDED. WITH FARAMIR AS HER KING CONSORT.
I feel the need to add in answers for Alanna. Because she was my first exposure to “lady goes off to fight dressed as a man” and she is AWESOME.
Eowyn and Faramir should have gotten to rule Ithilien, AND the Reunited Kingdoms, AND Rohan.
Minor quibble: most historians agree that the French and Continental Armies were not fictional.
(The jury’s still out on the Riders of Rohan.)
The brother in question is OBVIOUSLY her twin brother.
Oh, oh, there’s also “my girlfriend betrayed me horribly so I ran away from the horrible orphanage/wife farm we both lived in and joined the army.” (This is from Django Wexler’s The Thousand Names.)
(Also, I am pretty sure that historically, women used to dress up as men and join the army all the time, and it was no big deal, but no one ever talked about it so there’s no real historical record of it. [see: Read, Mary.])
In fact I think there was a post on the Toast about that…?
Monstrous Regiment! Polly/Mal 5eva
Mal, Mal, ambivalently-gendered monarch of my heart
Yassssss
*grabby hands*
I am no man. I am a Badass.
Can we take a minute to appreciate Christian Davies, who did these things *in real life*, and was given a pension and presented at court when she was discovered? I don’t know how to make links, but read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Davies
There are about 500 documented cases of women serving in the Civil War, with hundreds more unknown. Same with Revolutionary War, etc. In England and Europe there are countless examples of women running away, dressing as men and serving with distinction. Many were never discovered until they died
Not war, exactly, but POPE JOAN
Book rec: “They Fought for the Motherland”, about women joining the Russian army in WWI. The official women’s regiment was really called the Battalion of Death.
And I love this post!
And the female air corps, in silent fragile planes, were the Night Witches.
That is the best sentence I have read all night. It made shivers run down my spine.
Of course that was what they were called.
… Oh, the Night Witches were WWII, not WWI, but they were All That:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches
EOWYN
[swoons]
Let us not forget “Bob” from Blackadder Goes Forth who wants to see how a war is fought, badly.
And now I’ve decided it’s time for a Monstrous Regiment re-read
And the female air corps, in silent fragile planes, were the Night Witches.
That is the best sentence I have read all night. It made shivers run down my spine.
Of course that was what they were called.
… Oh, the Night Witches were WWII, not WWI, but they were All That:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches
Way too excited by the Monstrous Regiment shout-out. I was also really astonished when I discovered “monstrous regiment” was quoted by some old sexist famous man because I thought Terry came up with the title out of his own head, but duh, of course he found it somewhere! He’s a smart guy!
This is wonderful. I’m taking careful notes in case I follow my childhood career goal of being a covert knight/Deborah Sampson
I love the Monstrous Regiment references too, and also love being part of an online community where everyone in the comments is similarly excited! <3
Fun story: I am a transgender man, and essentially chose my name – Oliver – because of Monstrous Regiment. (My mom did want to name me Olivia and got vetoed, but that didn’t occur to me until later.)