A Voice for Men: we’ll support women in combat only if the proper percentage of women get killed.
Woman officially not in combat role.
As everyone reading this blog no doubt already knows, feminists have hailed the Pentagon’s decision to open combat jobs to women, which will allow women the same opportunities to serve as men. The decision is also a backhanded acknowledgement that, for all intents and purposes, women are serving in combat today already. (Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth lost both of her legs in combat in Iraq – but officially, what she was engaged in wasn’t combat.)
It seems inevitable that, as a result of this decision, young women will be required to sign up for selective service alongside men. While virtually all feminists I know oppose the draft, most agree that as long as registration is going to be required, it should be required for both men and women. Indeed, when selective service was reinstated in 1981, the National Organization for Women brought a lawsuit demanding this sort of equality.
Reaction amongst Men’s Rightsers to the Pentagon’s announcement has been mixed. Some have welcomed the change, as a “what’s good for the goose” acknowledgement of equal rights and responsibilities. Others, like most of the regulars on The Spearhead, predict catastrophe, as inherently unqualified women are sent to the front lines. Regular Spearhead commenter Uncle Elmer joked:
After this experiment runs its course, how many men will have died while bringing tampon supplies up to the front?
Can anyone tell me the additional garbage load from tampon-related issues on all-women submarines? Could a mission fail if some gal flushed her tampon down the toilet instead of following the proper mil-spec procedure?
But the most telling reaction has come from A Voice for Men, which in an editorial suggested that it would only support the move if women were required to die as often as men.
No, really. Here’s what the editorialist, presumably site founder Paul Elam, wrote:
AVFM supports the spirit of the new Pentagon Directive … However, any blanket approval of the new measure thus far would be premature. …
[T]he only way this new policy will have any meaning will be if it is mandatory that women face combat on the front lines. With 20% of the military being comprised of women, that means roughly 20% of combat related fatalities should be female. 1 in 5 of body bags being filled overseas should contain the bodies of mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and girlfriends.
AVFM isn’t alone in hoping that one result of the Pentagon’s new policy will be increased injury and death for women. On his blog the self-designated “counter-feminist agent of change” Fidelbogen quoted – with a weird sort of semi-approval – one comment from an unknown person he says he found online:
I know this isn’t a laughing matter but this is pretty fucking sweet. Now those very same women who complain about how hard childbirth is get to experience real pain and misery by getting their arms blown off by enemy fire or their legs blown off by mines. Or getting infections when they have to stay at their post for days at a time without taking a bath. Those same women who say all men are rapists can now see what real rape is when they are taken as POW’s and gang-raped by foreign men at gun point and passed around like a piece of meat and then their heads blown off when they are done. This is real war ladies, are you ready for your cup of true equality?
In the comments on AVFM, meanwhile one Rick Westlake helped to make clearer the vindictive subtext of the AVFM’s editorial, suggesting that the Pentagon’s decision could be good for men if it served to
rub … some high-ratcheted, ‘entitled/empowered’ noses in the misandric, disposable-male double standard of the Selective Service system.
Our current society, including our military, makes mock of ‘equality’ by divorcing ‘opportunity’ from ‘consequences,’ ‘choices’ from ‘costs,’ and ‘benefits’ from ‘responsibility.’ Princesses are awarded all of the opportunities, choices and benefits and are excused from all the responsibility, costs and consequences. ‘Draft-pigs,’ meaning men, are made to shoulder all those dirty, nasty, dangerous and demeaning responsibilities, consequences and costs on behalf of the Entitled Empowered Princesses.
Putting women on the combat line would be disastrous for the military … But the fact remains, enough Princesses have clamored for the ‘opportunities and benefits’ of serving in the front line, heedless of the consequences and the costs.
By requiring Princesses to register for Selective Service, before they can claim the benefits that ‘draft-pigs’ can only receive if they’ve registered – and by declaring them liable for the same fines and penalties as the draft-pigs, if they don’t – we at least remind them that freedom isn’t free, that choices have costs, and that true equality includes responsibility and consequences.
I can already hear the thin, reedy screeches from the Princesses. Fine. Let them learn what it is to hump 35-pound fifty-cal ammo cans to feed Ma Deuce in a firefight. Or let them scuttle back to the home and the hearth, and give thanks for (and to) the Brave Men who will defend them.
Elam himself echoed this vindictive “let them eat equality” stance in a sneering comment posted under his own name suggesting that in the wake of the Pentagon’s new policy plenty of women won’t find the “aroma” of equality to
be so sweet … This is what feminism was always about, and now, after three waves, the chickens are going to come home to roost. Because feminism never was about anything but creating tax paying, laboring, consuming, bleeding and dying servants to the masters of corporatocracy.
They lured women in with visions of corner offices and autonomy, and now that they have fully taken the bait, the doors are going to be slammed behind them and locked. They will be left to languish in their “freedom” as corporate wage slaves, and when needed they will be forced to contribute to the rivers of blood required to keep it going.
NOW and others will likely succeed in keeping the last part “optional” for while, but it won’t last.
The grand daughters of today’s college woman is as fucked as any man in history.
To which every feminist I know would say: bring it on. Feminists are well aware that equality, along with its many benefits, brings certain costs. Putting more women into combat roles means, inevitably, that more women will be injured or killed. The feminists supporting the Pentagon’s decision are aware of this. Unlike many MRAs, though, they look at combat injuries and deaths as one of the sad but inevitable consequences of war — not as something to rub anyone’s face into.
Here’s a hint to any MRAs who think that either AVFM or the more blatantly sadistic commenter quoted by Fidelbogen has a point: Civil Rights activism is about uplifting everyone, not making others “pay.”
When the American civil rights movement took up the issue of voting rights, civil rights activists demanded that black people be allowed to vote without harassment or other obstacles like “literacy tests” standing in their way.
Civil rights activists didn’t demand that whites be kept from voting.
The Civil Rights movement called for historically all-white colleges to be opened up to blacks. It didn’t call for white people to be banned from these colleges too.
This is how you can tell that the Men’s Rights movement, as it stands today, is not a true civil rights movement. Because insofar as it is about anything other than complaining about (and sometimes harassing) feminists and women in general, it’s about tearing down rather than building up.
Instead of trying to build domestic violence shelters and other services for men, for example, the MRM is more interested in defunding shelters for women – even when their efforts in this area directly harm male victims.
It’s telling that when Father’s Rights activist Glenn Sacks had an issue with the advertisements being run by one DV shelter, he encouraged his followers to bombard the shelter’s donors with phone calls in order to cripple the shelter’s fundraising efforts – even though the shelter in question also provides services for men. It’s telling as well that MRAs rail endlessly against the Violence Against Women Act, and have celebrated Republican opposition to it – even though the act is officially gender neutral in everything but its name, and would provide funding for men’s shelters if MRAs got off their asses to build any.
Instead of fighting for the rights of male victims of rape, the Men’s Rights movement is more interested in downplaying the rape of women, wildly exaggerating the number of “false rape accusations,” and in endless discussions about whether or not having sex with women incapacitated with drinks or drugs is really rape. All of these things contribute to a “rape culture” that harms male victims of rape as well as female.
Not that most MRAs actually care about male victims of rape except as a debating point — perhaps because that would require acknowledging that the overwhelming majority of their rapists are other men. (MRAs do get outraged in the rare cases in which women are the culprits.) The group that does more than any other to fight for male rape victims is the anti-prison rape group Just Detention. Try to find even a mention of this group on any of the leading Men’s Rights sites. (The only mention of the group on AVFM is a comment in a post attacking a feminist writer noting that it isn’t part of the Men’s Rights movement.)
There are endless other examples, because this is in essence the way that the so-called “Men’s Rights” movement does business.
When you take a certain pleasure in the notion of women being “made to pay” or otherwise harmed when they seek equality, you’re about as much of a civil rights movement as the Klan.
Posted on January 26, 2013, in a voice for men, antifeminism, are these guys 12 years old?, douchebaggery, feminism, gloating, hate, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA, paul elam, princesses, reactionary bullshit, taking pleasure in women's pain, the spearhead, women in combat and tagged a voice for men, antifeminism, men's rights, misogyny, women in combat. Bookmark the permalink. 1,143 Comments.
Dudes like Westlake and Fidelgoben never do grasp the fact that they’re the people who women sometimes need to be defended from, not the people who we want to be defended by, do they?
She started telling me she was glad she had her five kids because she became infertile at 26
Not to be that person, but… thank god something eventually stopped her? :p
I did think about making that joke to her too, but didn’t want to be mean. I have a friend who’s got 5 kids, she became infertile due to a complication with the fifth, but she’s joked that it was a good thing she was stopped. She loooooooooves having babies. I love her dearly, but the fact that she is the same age as my partner is terrifying.
I was going to suggest the army form a corps of highly trained bear attracting menstruators, but why not simplify things and just bomb the enemy with used tampons?
It occurs to me that if I’d bred in my twenties and my offspring had done likewise, I’d be a grandmother by now. Which is frankly a mind-bogglingly awful idea.
I don’t think my mum’d be too impressed at being a great-grandparent, either.
Kitties all the way for us. :P
I love people who love kids, but at some point it’s like good grief your children outnumber your limbs, maybe hold off on them for a while? :p
Also, you’d think people as obsessed with the destructive power of both menstruation and birth control as these guys would do some research into both. Do they really not know how easy it is to stop menstruation just by putting women on the pill? The only reason there was ever a gap in pill use during which women using it would bleed was to give early adopters reassurance that it was working and they weren’t pregnant. If the military needs women not to menstruate for some reason, that’s easy enough to accomplish.
katz – and have drop bears trained to sneak in and block up their toilets with tampons and leave signs saying what they’d done. Physical and psychological warfare all in one.
@Bagelsan – “I love people who love kids, but at some point it’s like good grief your children outnumber your limbs, maybe hold off on them for a while?”
Does that ratio mean Cthulhu would have a really big family?
@Cassandra – but expecting men to do research into lady stuff is MISANDRY! Shame on you.
Also, on the draft issue – I’d like to see it done away with altogether. Not just for all the obvious social justice reasons, but because I think the government is entirely too fond of getting into wars for no good reason already, and giving them access to potentially unlimited numbers of troops is only going to encourage them. If they knew for sure that there were no more soldiers coming if they got the ones they have now killed, maybe they’d be more cautious about how they use those soldiers.
(Probably not, but hey, why give them any more excuses to warmonger?)
Haha, totally Bagelsan. I feel that at least one arm per child is a good benchmark. That way you can keep them away from each other.
Or drop bears that drop onto men when they poop outdoors. Female drop bears.
Seething fucking rage at these mra jackasses right now.
Wow, most of that above beats their regular ignorance by a wide margin. I feel I should address a few things. BOTH my parents were in the Canadian military. Luckily for me neither one had to serve in combat roles. Dad did stuff with radar and computers that none of us to this day know much about. My mom’s job was far more physically demanding. She was a driver and heavy equipment operator. Yep it’s -45 in Cold Lake. Guess who was up at 3 am to get the snow off the runway? My mom. Guess who lead motorcades, guess who had to go pick up crashed aircraft from all over the continent, guess who worked sometimes for entire weekends when people showed up drunk to work? My mom. I am insanely proud of both my parents. My mom was ready to go into combat at any point she was needed. As a kid, it terrified the shit out of me that if shit hit the fan and there was another world war or something, that I had the potential to lose BOTH my parents. If these guys hate the idea of the fucking draft so much, how about working to abolish the draft. How about getting involved in international affairs to prevent wars? How about doing anything at all to help prevent ALL casualties of war. You know why? Because these pieces of human excrement get off on the pain and suffering of anyone other than themselves, including women, whether soldiers or civilians, and them scary foreign folk. Fuck MRA’s. Seriously fuck them.
Also I challenge any of them to look up some fucking statistics about how many civilians died in all the major conflcts of the 20th and 21st centuries. Fucking look it up. Women, children, the elderly, people with disabilities, people who are opposed to armed combat for whatever reason are all casualties of war even if they were never soldiers. Look up people who died of related issues like disease, hunger, thirst because war prevented people from obtaining what they needed to survive. Seriously Paul Elam and all, grow the fuck up, look out the fucking window and get off the computer and learn about reality. For fuck sakes.
::standing ovation for Bad_dog::
The idea that women have never been raped during war and would only know what that was like if they became combat troops…have these guys never even seen a history book?
Also menstruation does not attract bears or wolves or anything. I call bs. I work as a field geologist. Typically we lack services at camp and I’ve had to countless times deal with menstruation in the woods. You deal with it, and it’s not difficult to do. Honestly having to poop in the woods is way worse to deal with than my period. I think these guys are projecting. To them dealing with minor inconveniences may be traumatic (because I imagine their mommies do everything for them and they would bitch and cry if they ran out of their favorite pizza pockets) so they can’t possibly imagine how women deal with a period every month. Really shows their lack of life experience if you ask me.
That’s literally the first time I’ve ever seen or heard of the term “Draft-pigs.”
That stuck out for me too. Like I can kind of imagine some extremely passionate anti-Vietnam activists possibly coming up with something like that, maybe to express anger at people who went along with being drafted instead of dodging or becoming COs, but I don’t see how such a disparaging-sounding term for draftees would have caught on in any era. If he made up the term himself there is probably some convoluted logic about how being drafted makes you a pig going to slaughter, and of course that means the pig deserves your sympathy and they really don’t see where you got this “disparaging” idea. Poor MRAs, everyone sucks at communicating except for them.
Does that ratio mean Cthulhu would have a really big family?
One can only imagine! Or, er, not imagine because the human mind can’t comprehend the sheer horror. Or something. :p
“Draft pigs” is probably these guys still being annoyed about Jane Fonda’s anti-Vietnam war period. It’s a good hint about their age range, actually.
Of course the bear thing is an urban legend. It combines “faab bodies are weird and icky” with “delicate ladyfolks shouldn’t be running around outdoors.”
Isn’t the best way to attract bears to leave food out? I don’t think bears typically see used tampons as an ideal food source.
Did Jane Fonda use that term? Seems like she’d never have lived it down if she had. But yeah, it does conjure up the whole Vietnam era, probably because that was the last damn time the USA ever had a draft. These guys are furious about registering for Selective Service but have seemingly no awareness of the fact that the government went to great lengths to NOT call up the draftees for Iraq and Afghanistan. Everyone who had to register but never got called up can thank a reservist for taking up that slack.
I know not all of the reservists were men, but if the MRAs really were concerned about how much going to war sucks, they could help raise some awareness about the rules that limited the number of tours/amount of wartime a regular soldier could be exposed to, but left reservists high, dry, and completely boned.
I don’t recall Fonda ever using that term, but it does seem like something that would have come out of that era. There just hasn’t been a public backlash that focused on the soldiers themselves in the same way since.
Everyone knows it’s not blood, it’s sex that bears are attracted to, which is why you should never have sex on a hike :) Says the people who I think just want to scare you into not giving their trail a porn-esque soundtrack.
So basically if you had blood-focused BSDM sex on a hike you would trigger the Bear Apocalypse.
All of them, PaulE probably had the biggest rage boner. Stay classy, assholes.
I wish all these MRA whiners would get one heavy period. Just once. I mean, we’d never hear the end of it because they’re such delicate flowers, but at least they might know what they’re whining about, FOR ONCE. It’s not like they’ve had any other life experiences outside of not getting laid on demand.
Oh, Cassandra, I think mxe354 is looking for hair tips for curly/wavy hair here.
You know, if you feel like sharing. ;-)
Speaking of wanting men to experience one heavy period, two Dutch guys signed up — voluntarily — to try to experience what labor pains were like. It’s actually kind of hard to watch, but then I don’t like watching women experiencing labor pains either!
“While virtually all feminists I know oppose the draft, most agree that as long as registration is going to be required, it should be required for both men and women.”
Why? That is ridiculous. It is like arguing that men should get paid less to even out the wage gap instead of arguing women should get paid more.
It is like arguing we shouldn’t be trying to make female victims of domestic violence safe we should just try to make male victims less safe.
It is like arguing instead of getting rid of apartheid in South Africa they should have just held white people to the same repressive standards and sent them off to live in the ghettos as well.
This is MRA logic101. If a man is suffering, a woman must suffer too!
The whole everyone should be fucked over because some people are fucked over argument is bunk.
The government pulls it out when they want to take away more rights though. What they dois they first introduce laws into aboriginal communities using racism. Then a few years later they say “oh this is a racist policy, we must apply it to white people as well!”
That’s not the argument at all, Cassie. The draft isn’t even a thing, nor will it be, the MRAs just like to whine.
David seems to think it is when he says
“This is how you can tell that the Men’s Rights movement, as it stands today, is not a true civil rights movement. Because insofar as it is about anything other than complaining about (and sometimes harassing) feminists and women in general, it’s about tearing down rather than building up.”
He argues against his own position of extending the draft to apply to women as well when he states
“When the American civil rights movement took up the issue of voting rights, civil rights activists demanded that black people be allowed to vote without harassment or other obstacles like “literacy tests” standing in their way.
Civil rights activists didn’t demand that whites be kept from voting.
The Civil Rights movement called for historically all-white colleges to be opened up to blacks. It didn’t call for white people to be banned from these colleges too”
Progressives should nto be arguing that the draft should apply to women as well, leave that to the MRAs and other regressive types.
Could we please not dumb down this conversation? Everyone here is smart enough to understand the actual argument, which is that a. the draft is a bad thing and should not exist, but b. as long as it does it should apply to everyone regardless of sex.
NB to lurkers, not all progressives are as dumb as Cassie.
“Could we please not dumb down this conversation? Everyone here is smart enough to understand the actual argument, which is that a. the draft is a bad thing and should not exist, but b. as long as it does it should apply to everyone regardless of sex.”
Yes and I disagree with that, because of the reasons I gave above.
Including the ones David gave. At the point in history when men had the vote but women did not would you have said “men and women should have the vote but if they don’t then nobody should be allowed to vote”? If so why?
Cassie, you’re making the assumption that everyone agrees that the draft (or at lest registering for it) is unethical and/or a breach of human rights.
If someone sees registration for the draft as a not unreasonable condition of being a citizen of a country, like taxation for example, then that condition should be applied equally, regardless of gender.
Ironically, it is the MRAs who both argue that the draft is unethical and want it extended to women.
Wow, she’s even dumber than I initially assumed.
Do you argue now that instead of increasing pay for women to achieve pay equity that we should decrease pay for men? It is the exact same argument and it is the argument a MRA would make.
So basically if you had blood-focused BSDM sex on a hike you would trigger the Bear Apocalypse.
Bring food. Bears love food. And everyone could use a snack after a hike-orgy.
But Cassie, is there even a draft in the US? I thought all the people serving now were volunteers. This law is about combat duty, not a hypothetical draft, isn’t it?
Hint for the less dumb – the argument that is actually being made is more like “It’s unethical for the government to force people to give blood, but as long as that’s what’s happening, the requirement that citizens give blood should logically apply to everyone regardless of sex”.
Kitteh’s, there is no draft in the US right now, and not likely to be in this lifetime again. Men currently have to register for it though, but the military is volunteer.
Cassie, WTF are you huffing before you type?
“Cassie, you’re making the assumption that everyone agrees that the draft (or at lest registering for it) is unethical and/or a breach of human rights.”
No, I am not. Please provide reasoning for this assertion.
“If someone sees registration for the draft as a not unreasonable condition of being a citizen of a country, like taxation for example, then that condition should be applied equally, regardless of gender.”
Ah, but that is not the argument being put forward here, the argument being put forward is…
“Everyone here is smart enough to understand the actual argument, which is that a. the draft is a bad thing and should not exist, but b. as long as it does it should apply to everyone regardless of sex.”
“Ironically, it is the MRAs who both argue that the draft is unethical and want it extended to women.”
It seems to me David and others on this forum are putting forth the same argument, they state it should not exist (as it is unethical?) but if it does it should be spread to everyone.
@ Kittehs
Technically there could be a draft, but it’s unlikely that there will be. I’d like to see registration done away with anyway for the reasons I listed above, but in terms of likelihood of anyone actually being drafted right now? Pretty low.
Which means that Cassie is saying “The draft is bad, but while there is one, only men should be drafted.” Because that’s the result of her argument, surely?
In the meantime, I think the Pentagon is missing out on the ultimate war weapon. Parachute BDSM groups into the forests of enemy territory, let them have at it and the Bear Apocalypse will be triggered.
Also, Cassie, the MRM wouldn’t even make that pay argument except to say that women shouldn’t work at all.
““It’s unethical for the government to force people to give blood, but as long as that’s what’s happening, the requirement that citizens give blood should logically apply to everyone regardless of sex”.
Yes that is a good analogy. I disagree with your conclusion however, why would the best thing to be to violate the rights of more people? Isn’t it better to minimise human rights violations?
Cassie’s argument is so circular, she’s about to disappear up her own ass. Any minute now.
Oooh, nooo, @Cassandra and I apparently argue against each other … OMG feminists disagreeing. Have I broken from the hivemind? Does this mean I have to self-distruct?
I don’t think Cassie has any idea what she’s saying at this point, actually. I’m getting a strong “I’m not quite sure what I’m outraged about but being outraged sure is fun!” vibe from this one.
“Also, Cassie, the MRM wouldn’t even make that pay argument except to say that women shouldn’t work at all.”
Yes my statement there was unclear. I meant they would make that argument from their side of the fence. If they thought men got lower wages or whatever, they would demand women’s were lowered rather than men’s raised. Which is nonsense.
“OMG feminists disagreeing. Have I broken from the hivemind? Does this mean I have to self-distruct?”
I’m a socialist actually :)
Cassie, how is registering for a draft a violation of human rights, and what MRA website did you crawl out of?
@ titianblue
OMG, one of us is now required to resign from feminism! Because of course just like AVFM we have a board of directors.
Again, for those lurking – if something is a violation of human rights, deciding that it’s just dandy for the rights of only one sex to be violated is what the less batshit among us refer to as “sexism”.
Cassie, you’re still equating “minimising human rights violations” with “aiming those violations at a group based on gender” – men. How is this supposed to be a good thing? It’s stupid, targeting men for the draft on the assumption women can’t or won’t serve, if one has to have a draft, which the US at present effectively doesn’t. Same here, too: last time we had a draft was the Vietnam War.
Ninja’d by Cassandra. :P
“Cassie, how is registering for a draft a violation of human rights, and what MRA website did you crawl out of?”
Lol, I am far far far from being a MRA, just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean I agree with them, that is a false dichotomy.
As for why it is a violation of human rights, perhaps it isn’t, I didn’t say it was. If you could provide me with why you guys think it shouldn’t exist at all I could respond to that. Is it because you think it is unethical? Unnecessary? A violation of human rights? What is it?
Sorry, Cassie, I’ve hit my quota of “trying to explain simple concepts to stupid people” for the day.
Cassie, we’re not here to educate your dumb ass. Google is your friend, use it.
Ninja’d by Cassandra.
“Again, for those lurking – if something is a violation of human rights, deciding that it’s just dandy for the rights of only one sex to be violated is what the less batshit among us refer to as “sexism”.”
It would be yes, however that is not what I said at all. I said it is better to do as the civil rights movement did, as David brought up, push for greater rights, such as access to universities and voting. Not for less rights such as everyone being part of the draft.
“Cassie, you’re still equating “minimising human rights violations” with “aiming those violations at a group based on gender””
Can you clarify this please. It seems to be contradictory. I think the less people who suffer human rights violations, or unethical laws, or whatever is you want to call this situation, the better! Extending it only hurts more people, one should campaign for it to be abolished if one disagrees with it, not extended.
Cassie, you know we can scroll up, right? You keep changing whatever inanities you’re arguing from post to post.
Go away, you are tedious and stupid.
Ignoring the stupid…I can kind of see the argument for a draft in certain specific cases, for example if a country is living under constant threat of imminent invasion. South Korea comes to mind – they have the most unstable, potentially dangerous country in the world sitting right on their doorstep, so they really do need some sort of military protection. OTOH, a lot of people there feel that part of the purpose of mandatory military service is to brainwash young men into acting the way the government wants them to, and that people come out fundamentally different to how they were when they went in.
Given that the USA doesn’t actually have a draft right now, I don’t think that you have to worry about feminists pushing for women to be drafted. There’s a difference between saying that IF there was a draft then it is unfair to discriminate amongst potential draftees based on gender and actually pushing for women to be drafted.
@ Cassie:
In some hypothetical world where the draft still existed in the United States, allowing women to be drafted would not mean that the overall number of people drafted would increase. The same number of people would still end up being drafted, it’s just that that same number would include both men and women.
Also, I don’t think our friend Cassie understands political strategy at all. What do you think would happen if NOW issued a declaration saying that they were opposed to women specifically being drafted? How do you think that would impact, say, campaigns to open positions that have traditionally been closed to women in the military?
“Given that the USA doesn’t actually have a draft right now, I don’t think that you have to worry about feminists pushing for women to be drafted. There’s a difference between saying that IF there was a draft then it is unfair to discriminate amongst potential draftees based on gender and actually pushing for women to be drafted.”
My understanding of USA laws was that when men enrol to vote they also have to put their name on a draft register in the case that the draft is put into effect and that women aren’t required to do this. Is that an incorrect understanding?
Or, to put it another way – the recent decision to open combat positions to women? That probably wouldn’t have happened if feminists hadn’t put forward the argument that as long as there’s registration it should apply to women too.
(I hate trying to teach realpolitik to people with no real-world experience, it’s always an exercise in frustration.)
“Also, I don’t think our friend Cassie understands political strategy at all. What do you think would happen if NOW issued a declaration saying that they were opposed to women specifically being drafted? How do you think that would impact, say, campaigns to open positions that have traditionally been closed to women in the military?”
Ah yes, political strategy. That is an interesting topic. I’m not sure what would happen if NOW said that, then the issue becomes how much are you willing to compromise your political position to cater to the masses?