50 Posts for 50 Years of USNA — Post [18]
My roommate and I were not leaders. At least not officially.
In my senior year at the Naval Academy, we were ranked dead last in our peer group for leadership positions. She was second to last. I was last. We had both endured our share of come-arounds as plebes, and neither of us was particularly motivated to inflict on others what we had resented receiving. So we kept our heads down and let the ranked seniors do their thing.
I never expected to rise up. Not once. Not that year.
And then one night at dinner, I had no choice.
The chow table at Bancroft Hall had its own rigid geography. Seniors sat at the head. Juniors at the far end. Youngsters along one long side. Plebes, on the other hand, faced the youngsters across the table. From the vantage of the head, you could watch the plebes try to eat between responding to commands, reciting news headlines, and rattling off sports scores on demand. Plebes existed at the table to serve and to perform. They passed everything. They ate when they could. And they could not leave, could not shove off, without first extending one arm straight out, fist clenched, and formally requesting permission.
Sometimes a senior would wave them off quickly. Sometimes a senior would ask for a joke first.
That night, a plebe I’ll call Mr. X made his request to shove off. He was asked for a joke.
He looked up and said, “Can I tell a WUBA joke?”
WUBA. At the Naval Academy in those years, the word carried two meanings. The first was innocent enough — Working Uniform Blue Alpha, a standard-issue uniform. The second meaning was something else entirely. A slur. A vicious, reductive piece of shorthand that described women at the Academy in the ugliest terms imaginable.
I sat at the head of that table.
I could not believe what I was hearing.
This plebe — this idiot — is going to tell a WUBA joke at my table?
“No, Mr. X.” My voice came out crisp. Controlled. I don’t know how. “You don’t have to tell a joke to get off this table. You are dismissed. Report to my room immediately. Brace up until I arrive.”
He left. I stayed a few minutes longer. Partly to make him sweat. Mostly to find something resembling composure, because I was furious in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Mr. X was about ten inches taller than me. He was also standing outside my room door at attention, braced up, and visibly aware that he was in serious trouble.
“Mr. X, at ease.” I kept my voice level. “Tell me — what does WUBA mean?”
“Working Uniform Blue Alpha, ma’am.”
Oh, thank goodness. I was worried. “Then let’s hear your joke about the uniform.”
A pause.
“No, ma’am. I don’t, I don’t have a joke about the uniform.”
“You don’t? Well then. What does WUBA mean?”
Silence. A long silence. And then, slowly:
“WUBA stands for Women Used by All.”
I let that sit in the air for a moment.
“Mr. X, I am so sorry to hear that your joke is about that.” I kept my voice quiet, almost gentle. “You mean to tell me that you believe I am a woman used by all here at the Naval Academy?”
“No, Miss Andrew!”
Ah, then..”If your sister were attending here, she would be a woman used by all at the Naval Academy?”
“No, Miss Andrew!”
I continued. His mother. His girlfriend. Every woman he had ever cared about, placed into that acronym, placed into that table, placed into that moment. I watched his face change, from the residue of something he thought was funny to the slow, uncomfortable recognition of what it actually was.
I didn’t yell. I didn’t have to.
When I felt the shift, when I could sense that the joke had curdled into something he could no longer defend, I stopped.
“Mr. X. I don’t ever want to hear that you told a WUBA joke. Do you understand me? Will you ever tell a WUBA joke?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Get out of here.”
I was ranked last in leadership that year. I held no official authority over anything or anyone.
But there are moments when rank has nothing to do with it. When what’s required isn’t a title, it’s the willingness to be the person at the table who refuses to let something pass.
I had spent four years at the Naval Academy learning what it cost to be a woman there. I knew the weight of that acronym. I knew what it meant for it to be spoken casually, as a punchline, as entertainment, at a table where I was sitting right there.
The plebe didn’t need a come-around in the old punishing sense. He needed someone to make him feel it. To make the abstraction personal. To stand in for every woman the joke was about and say: I am right here. We are right here.
I don’t know what became of Mr. X. I hope he became the kind of officer who would have stopped that joke himself. I hope he remembered the night he almost told it.
I hope, someday, he became the person sitting at the head of his own table, not tolerating making punchlines of people.
This is part of my series marking 50 years since women were first admitted to the United States Naval Academy. One post for each year. These are my stories.
Thanks for the share. While I did not attend the Naval Academy nor serve our country in the military, I am married to a female naval veteran and have heard my fair share of stories about what it was like to serve as a female (officer) especially in those early days. I am also aware of all of the ways leadership is not related to position or rank and that the best demonstrations of leadership are often in the moment experiences from people who do not hold position power. It’s all the little pieces that add up sometimes and have the most impact. Be that person…..take a breath, be brave in the moment.