Challenging Ingrained Beliefs in Benedict's Sand Queen

It is not an incredible stretch to presume that the events which the story of Sand Queen details are ones which would quickly be dubbed falsehoods if not for the fact that much of the plot was initially derived from the experiences of real women living and working in the warzones of Iraq. The attitudes which the character of Kate, an American soldier, is forced to contend with by her male peers truly beggar belief – everything from the nicknames given to her (“Tits,” “Pinkass,” and “party girl,” among others) to an attempted sexual assault by her superior reads more as a warning to women against joining the military than an extrapolation of real-life experiences described in interviews by actual female soldiers.

However, this is where we see the true power of Helen Benedict’s novel come into play: through exposing a series of harsh realities real women who are represented by Kate and Naema must undergo in a war-torn land, she informs her readers that nothing in this world is simply black and white. Many of the patriotic American “heroes” are lascivious and treat Kate in a truly vile manner, something which suggests that while a man may live and die for this country, this does not necessarily make him a good (or even pleasant) person. This challenges image of a just, upright soldier many readers likely have ingrained into them in an American context, and the divide in attitude between people like Jimmy and people like Mack towards their female co-worker calls to attention the fact that sexual harassment is no more acceptable in a war setting than an office one.