From the Archives: From Confucius to Air Traffic Control
In 130 BCE, the Chinese emperor Han Wudi came up with a new idea for how to choose government bureaucrats. He established a civil service of Confucian scholars, known in English as mandarins, who earned their positions by passing a standardized examination. The system still favored those from privileged families who could afford to give their sons* a formal education. But at least in theory, getting a government job in imperial China now depended on what you knew instead of who you knew or what family you were born in.
In Wudi's day, the examinations tested candidates' understanding of the tenets of Confucian moral and ethical thought on which Han dynasty government was based--the equivalent of asking candidates for jobs in the United States government to pass a test on the Magna Carta, the Constitution, and the Federalist papers. Over time, the examinations became more and more divorced from the realities of government. By the Manchu dynasty of the seventeenth century, candidates were tested on their knowledge of Chinese history, their ability to compose poetry, and the quality of their calligraphy.
Wudi's civil service exams controlled who got a government job in China from the seventh century CE through 1905, when the system was abolished in response to pressure from a new western-educated elite. The west didn't adopt the concept until the nineteenth century. In 1853, the British East India Company was the first European power to use competitive examinations as a means of reforming an increasingly corrupt system in which positions were acquired through patronage and purchase. The East India Company consciously copied the Chinese exam system, creating a class of "new Mandarins".
Other western governments, faced with the hazards of civil service based on "who you know", thought Wudi's idea that government employees should pass a test proving their fitness for government service was a good one. The United States entered the game in 1883, after a disgruntled would-be federal employee assassinated President James Garfield. Civil Service exams controlled who got a job in the United States civil service until 1978, when the general civil service examination was abolished. Today, civil service exams are still required for jobs requiring a specific set of skills, such as air traffic controllers and intelligence agency linguists.
* Just to put this in context: roughly 2000 years later Clara Barton was one of only FOUR women to work for the United States Federal government in the years just before the American Civil War. At the time, plenty of people thought the presence of women in government jobs was a sign that the system of patronage had gone awry.
Image credit: iqoncept / 123RF Stock Photo
Fighting the Roman Empire
Back many moons ago when I was writing the proposal for this book I'm writing,* one of the first women I wrote about was Boudica, the Celtic woman who led an uprising against the Romans and almost kicked them out of Britain in 60 BCE. One of key elements in her story, at least from my perspective, was how horrified the Romans were at the idea of a woman fighting, let alone a woman leading troops. It seemed to them as unnatural as a two-head calf.
Since then, I've stumbled over more examples of women who fought against Rome--women who I never heard of before. Some of them won. Most of them at least made a good effort. And in each case, the Roman historians who tell the story repeat some variation of surprise/shock/horror/shame at the idea that Roman legions have suffered even a temporary defeat at the hands of a woman commander. After a while you'd think the novelty would have worn off.
I've told as many "women fighting against Rome" stories as the book will hold. ** I'd like to share some of the bounty here:
- Boudica (see above)
- Cleopatra commanded the Egyptian fleet as a reserve in the Battle of Actium (31BCE), the great naval engagement that was the decisive battle in the war with Octavia,—obviously she was more than just a pretty face.
Mark Antony and Cleopatra--two sides of the same coin
- Soon after the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra, round 25 BCE, the one-eyed Kushite ruler*** Amanirenas the Brave took advantage of Rome's distraction to do a bit of expansion. When Rome decided to take the land back, she successfully defended her country for five years, when Rome sued for peace. About fifteen years later, another kandake, Amanikasheto, defeated another Roman army.
- Zenobia, the ruler of Palmyra in what is now Syria, rose up against Rome, conquered the eastern third of the Roman empire**** and proclaimed herself Augusta before she was defeated by the emperor Aurelian in 272 CE.
Zenobia
- A hundred years later, in much the same neck of the empire, the Arab leader Mawiyya revolted against Rome and defeated them so thoroughly that Rome sued for peace on Mawiyya's terms. Later that year, once again allies of Rome, Mawiyya and her troops came to the aid of Constantinople, which a group of Goths, Huns, and Alans had beseiged. At least one Roman historian, Amiantus Marcellianus, claimed Mawiyya's Arabs saved the city. (Of course, he also claimed the Arabs terrified the Goths into submission by running shrieking into battle naked and that they sucked the blood from the throats of their fallen enemies Obviously a source to use with care.)
Anyone I'm missing who ought to be part of this list? Perhaps a woman who disguised herself as a man and fought on the Roman side? Let me know.
*I mentioned that I'm writing a book on women warriors, right?
**In fact, I suspect my editor may tell me to cut one or two. So many women warriors from so many times and places.
***Just to save you looking it up, Kush was an ancient Nubian kingdom in what is now the central Sudan. Their queens were known as kandakes, which the Roman geographer Strabo mangled into Candace, which he thought was the name of a single queen.
****About the same size as what would become what is often referred to as Byzantium, though the people who lived there thought they lived in the true Roman empire. Go figure.
For anyone who's wondering why most of these women come from the Middle East, I refer you to this map of the Roman empire at its height in 117 CE. As you can see, the Roman empire was heavily weighted to the east.
Nurses in the Vietnam War: A Guest Post by Lynn Kanter
At the moment, the Vietnam War is on America's collective minds once more, thanks to Ken Burns' amazing documentary. Burns dealt briefly on the story of the women who served--just enough to make those of us who are interested in the roles of women in war want to know more. Luckily, I knew the right person to ask: Lynn Kanter, the author of Her Own Vietnam--an excellent novel about an American nurse who served in Vietnam. I asked her to share her experience researching and writing about nurses here on the Margins. Several things Lynn shares left me gobsmacked--and not in a good way.
Take it away, Lynn!
As a long-time reader and admirer of History in the Margins, I was delighted when Pamela invited me to write a guest post. Here is my contribution to Pamela’s current obsession about women in war.
On the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC, you will find 8 women’s names carved into the glossy black granite. All were nurses. The list of American women who died in Vietnam swells to 67 if you include the civilian women who worked there or served as volunteers. Of these unnoted dead, two were journalists; four were taken prisoner and either killed or remain missing in action; and two were murdered by U.S. servicemen.*
This fall, Ken Burns’ and Lynn Novick’s documentary series about the Vietnam war threw a brief spotlight on some of the approximately 10,000 women who served.** For most of the previous decades, they have lingered in the margins of history.
I spent more than 10 years exploring those shadowy corners, conducting research for my novel about the lifelong grip of the Vietnam war on a middle-aged nurse who had served there in her youth. I pored through books,*** articles, and websites. Best of all, I stumbled upon a listserv for women who had served in Vietnam. Most were nurses, as were almost 90 percent of all the military women there. Although they knew I was a civilian researching a novel, and that I had been an anti-war protester, these veterans welcomed me to their online community, revealed some of their memories, and answered my many questions.
The woman who shared the most with me was a nurse who had served two tours in Vietnam, from 1969 to 1971, based in Quang Tri and then Chu Lai. Her name was Chris Banigan. We lived on opposite sides of the country, so after a year of emails I was thrilled to meet her in person at the Vietnam Women’s Memorial**** on Veterans Day of 2003, where she told me a remarkable story.
She had just run into a soldier who had been her final patient in Vietnam. It was no accident: year after year he had been visiting the Vietnam Wall on Veterans Day, asking everyone he met if they knew a nurse named Banigan. Finally, he asked her.
I had to imagine the excitement, the conversation, maybe the emotional hug between a nurse and her patient. That’s not the kind of thing that Chris, reticent and matter-of-fact, would have shared with me. But she did tell me in a later email, “I remember when I took him to x-ray. He was terrified that his eye had been blown out, and he could not be reassured until he saw the reflection of his left eye in the x-ray machine. Odd, the things you remember.”
For years, Chris had been collecting and compiling an archive of information about the women who served in Vietnam. This, she believed, was historical data that would be invaluable to future scholars and historians. In her dogged way, Chris Banigan was preparing for that future. She never lived to see it.
In March 2004, just four months after the miraculous meeting with her last Vietnam patient, Chris died suddenly. She was 58 years old. I have not been able to discover what happened to the historical archive she built so painstakingly.
Vietnam had haunted her all her life and turned her staunchly anti-war, but Chris had some advice for me and other civilians who sought to write about military nurses. “They didn’t pick their war,” she told me. “They only served.”
*Some of their stories: http://www.virtualwall.org/women.htm
**No one really knows how many U.S. women served in Vietnam. The military did not keep track. [This is Pam butting in: !!!!!?????]
***A few good books: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/men-werent-the-only-heroes-of-the-vietnam-war/2017/09/15/59340c16-98d3-11e7-87fc-c3f7ee4035c9_story.html?utm_term=.ff6c223e4db0#comments
****The Women’s Vietnam Memorial is only yards away from the Wall, but not as well known. It was erected in 1993 after a 10-year struggle, led by former Vietnam nurse Diane Carlson Evans, against misogyny and opposition, including a suggestion by the Chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts that a commemoration of military scout dogs would be the next logical step (http://www.vietnamwomensmemorial.org/pdf/dcevans.pdf).
Lynn Kanter is the author of the novel Her Own Vietnam, which was published in 2014 and released as an audiobook in 2017. She is a lifelong activist and has the t-shirts to prove it. Lynn works as a freelance writer for national progressive organizations, and blogs at www.lynnkanter.com. You can buy Her Own Vietnam at http://www.shademountainpress.com/lynnkanter.php. The audiobook is available at https://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Her-Own-Vietnam-Audiobook/B074JH42LJ