Gender Roles In The Naked Citadel

Feminism has long been a highly intensive subject debated for many generations by both men and women. From the early writings of female authors during the Age of Enlightenment to the heated marches on Washington D.C. for women’s suffrage, feminism has not only strengthened throughout the centuries, but also has gained wide acceptance. At the start of Susan Faludi’s The Naked Citadel, immediately the idea of feminism is introduced with the first female admission to an all-male military school, the Citadel. However, moving deeper into Faludi’s story, it is quickly realized that the plot actually does not focus on the theme of feminism. On the contrary, the hated towards the woman is created through an interesting alignment or alliance of the

men. In The Naked Citadel, the negative reaction to the admission of a woman to the school is not particularly fueled because of male-dominant attitudes that undermine women; rather, the hatred and animosity is built because the admission of a woman would be an invasion of the intricate and complex sexual orientation that the male students are involved in.
In the Naked Citadel, without the presence of women, the male students have created their own male and female roles in their society.

Particularly upperclassmen have substituted “knobs”, a name used to denote the lowerclassmen, for women at the Citadel. Just like how they would treat women with violence and hateful gender-specific language, the upperclassmen would behave the same with students they would deem to be more feminine: “Virtually every taunt equated him with a woman: whenever he showed fear, they would say, “You look like you’re having an abortion,” or “Are you menstruating?”” (Faludi 85). The students could “re-create a male-dominant society…by casting male knobs in all the subservient feminine roles” (Faludi 85). Through these actions, it can easily be inferred that the student body itself has created male and female roles within itself. This shows that even without women, the men still had the need to divide their society by gender ranks. With the admission of a woman, the entire structure of the society the students had built would fall apart. Thus the negative reaction to the admission of a female student is supported here by the need of defending the strange situations the students have created for

themselves.
The attitude and demeanor the students have created by placing female roles upon younger students is further intensified by the several other actions committed upon the “knobs”. Paralleling how upperclassmen show gender-related hate and violence towards the cadets who played the female roles in their society, they also treat the younger students with the same or even increased violence through a upperclassmen-knob relationship: “…when a leader of the Junior Sword Drill, a unit of cadet sword-bearers, leaped off a five-foot dresser onto the head of a prostrate cadet, then left him in a pool of blood in a barracks hall” (Faludi 81). Just as the men created a unique male and female role society within the Citadel, the men also created ranks of power through the upperclassmen-knob relationship. This shows the unique psychology of the students that the male school has created. Within their society, the men have the need to designate ranks and powers to each other: whether it is male-female roles or upperclassmen-knob interactions. Thus the students are against the admission of a female student because it would interfere with their established connections with each other, specifically upperclassmen to knob and the male and female roles created within the student body.
The most popular reason why students are against the admission of a female student is because she would be an invasion of their “family”. With no women, the students have created their own family, one that nurtures them and shares their pains and grieves: “It’s a family, even the way we eat—family style” (Faludi 97). Almost like evolution or adaption, the men have taken up the role of a mother-loving figure, parenting and caring for each other. The students’ main example of their family and affection towards each other is the communal bathrooms: “The sharing of the stall-less showers and stall-less toilets is “at the heart of the Citadel experience”” (Faludi 75). The sharing of the bathrooms strengthens their bond with each other. As in an almost homosexual way, the men enjoy the communal bathrooms where they can demonstrate a mother-daughter relationship and show their love and affections towards each other: “When we are in the showers, it’s very intimate…We’re one mass, naked together, and it makes us closer…You’re shaved, you’re naked, you’re afraid together. You can cry” (Faludi 97). The students at the Citadel have adapted to the environment they were placed in. With no women to share their love with, the men sought each other for that affection and care. Thus the students do not wish a female student to join their school because she would invade the loving and caring relationship the students have formed with each other.
In the Citadel, many male students even further complicate the sexual orientation of the school by fantasizing about being a woman. These students were previously suspected of being homosexual because they “looked like a male model—sleek black hair and a handsome, chiseled face” (Faludi 101). However, further into Faludi’s story, it becomes immediately evident that the men are not indeed gay, but rather have a complex hobby. At the Treehouse, a local bar where the students from the Citadel hang out, students are able to become drag queens, dressing up as a woman and acting with increased femininity in plays: “But on the nights he was dressed for a performance he could pass for a woman. Arching an eyebrow…The cadets go for the drag queens” (Faludi 101). The students were able to escape the roles of their gender and recreate themselves by taking upon the characters of a man or woman. They were able to fantasize about both genders and this practice was commonly accepted within the student body. However with the admission of a female student, this type of practice would be viewed as embarrassing and would soon be stopped, thus taking away an important freedom enjoyed by the male students.
Without female students, men at the Citadel were able to enjoy certain rituals and customs that might be eliminated with the entrance of more women into the school. Specifically the men at the Citadel were able to enjoy the certain things that were only permissible for women: “And suddenly it became obvious to me what was generating that void, that yearning, in the cadets’ lives…a kind of freedom and spontaneity that, in this culture, only women are permitted” (Faludi 102). A particular example Faludi pointed out was female “slumber parties” (Faludi 102). Even though women were able to enjoy this type of leisure and activity, men were not able to have such excitement. So they created their own forms of enjoyment: the “nudity rituals” (Faludi 99). In these types of leisure made for men, the students would for example, “rip each other’s clothes off, burn them in a bonfire, and hug and wrestle on the ground” (Faludi 99) or even “unclad except for their cross-webbing, run around the quad yelling, “We love the Nude Platoon!”” (Faludi 100). In their own type of excitement, the men were able to enjoy certain things that were previously only culturally restricted to women. Thus if a female did join the school, many of the types of customs the students performed would again be viewed as embarrassing and quickly eliminated from the Citadel.
It is surprising what the reasons are in reality of why the students at the Citadel do not want a female to be part of their school. Due to the time period and environment of The Naked Citadel, it can easily be concluded that, for the most part, Southern men in the second half of the 20th century commonly did not accept movements of feminism, specifically entrance into higher education, work forces, and women’s suffrage. However Susan Faludi successfully describes the situation at the Citadel so meticulously that it is easily determined that the students of the military school do not reject a female student based on the common reasons that were present in their time period and environment. Rather, it is because of the unique sexual orientation and customs of the student body that fuel the hatred against the entrance of a woman into the school. Thus Susan Faludi’s The Naked Citadel is a perfect example how a particular student body can invent unusual and intricate customs and characteristics due to the certain gender setup of a school.