rgeant look at her experience in a masculine light. This time she is “translated into the body of a soldier, and into the system in which he lives and moves..” (p.78) Here again we see that women aren’t fully a part of the war, although Sergeant was injured during duty, she feels like a soldier, as if soldiers were the only ones to deserve that treatment. It is also as a soldier that we see Sergeant behave, yet again, as a man. Sergeant “demanded, in the voice of Julius Caesar or Napoleon, a hypodermic.”(p.78) Again she resumes the role of a man to receive the needle. Higonnet & Higonnet claim “The actual nature of the social activity is not as critical as the cultural perception of its relative value in a gender-linked structure of subordination.” (p.34) This statement is made perfectly clear in the following excerpt from Sergeant. Like the soldier, I feel no bitterness and very little surprise at my individual lot. At every stage I have said to myself: ‘So this is what it is like’- drivefrom hospital to hospital, for instance; or to lie on the floor interminably while indifferent people walk about and brush your face with a foot or a skirt. Certainly I did not want to be hurt. But I still have less right than the soldier to complain. (p 76)This paragraph clearly shows that although Sergeants is sick, and like the soldier, she experiences what war is like, she feels she has less right than the soldier to complain. Gender positions remained the same, even during war. Even though Sergeant was injured serving her country, it is not as important as the male who was injured serving his country. This is why Sergeant sees war through a male point of view and saw herself as a soldier, it is because it is more valued by society. Society’s view on gender can also be seen in Sergeant’s work. The following clearly shows...
