MRAs often complain bitterly that men have to register for the draft and women don’t. Ironically, many MRAs – sometimes the very same people – also think that women shouldn’t be allowed in the armed forces at all, or at the very least should be barred from direct combat.
One MRA who’s staunchly against women in combat is a Redditor calling himself Demonspawn. In a recent comment he sets forth “four huge reasons” why. The first is a doozy:
The vagina. You can’t keep it clean in battlefield conditions. Military regulations state that women on extended training exercises must have access to garrison or equivalent facilities for hygiene at least once every X number of days (usually 7). Why? Because otherwise you run a very high risk of a vaginal infection and can die from it. Those facilities cannot be guaranteed on the battlefield and therefore it is an even greater risk to women’s lives to use them as battlefield troops.
I’m surprised he forgot to mention the chronic problem of centipedes in the vagina.
The rest of his reasons are equally stupid, if not quite as amusing. Number two:
Public Relations. … Have you not read the articles when women soldiers die and it’s a big deal, while more dead male soldiers is just business as usual? Public support for war cannot be sustained in the face of massive female soldier casualties.
And three:
Men get themselves killed overprotecting women. This is the #1 reason Israel deintegrated their troops.
Yeah, it’s a terrible thing when soldiers try to protect one another.
His final reason returns us once again to the whole vagina thing:
Women tend to “get pregnant” when leaving for overseas trips… That destroys unit cohesion. Research the “pregnant navy” syndrome. One ship had over 40% of it’s female sailors suddenly become pregnant before an overseas trip.
I did a Google search for “pregnant navy.” In 2007, according to one article I found, roughly 11 percent of female soldiers had to be shifted to shore because they were pregnant; it’s usually less than that.
Women: trouble when their vaginas are infected, trouble when they’re clean. Why do we even let them leave the house?
Thanks to MuForceShoelace for posting the link to Demonspawn’s comment on the AgainstMensRights subreddit.
EDIT: I misread an article I originally cited about female crew members on a supply ship getting pregnant during the Gulf war. The percentage who got pregnant was 10%, not more than half. (In my defense, the article was badly worded.) I’ve removed the erroneous material.
“Brandon’s taut muscles rippled like Chocolate Ripple ice cream as he flexed and stepped out of the line of recruits. The busty female drill sergeant felt her womanly heart flutter under her skimpy tanktop, her dainty knees trembling girlishly. Never before had she seen a man with such seething, raw masculine strength, and she knew with her feminine intuition that her years and years of combat experience wouldn’t stop this handsome godlike bodybuilder from wiping the floor with her like the simpering 90-pound 14-year-old girl every woman is deep inside. But that was okay, ’cause he was super hot and probably had a giant penis.
“‘Brandon!’ she sighed, as he threw her (and several other female soldiers) over one broad, rock-hard shoulder, ‘take me now, you hunk of powerful fighting man meat!’
“Then Brandon fought every single woman in the world in a row and won, killed about a million terrorists with his bare hands, got all the promotions, and went to Thailand for totally legitimate non-prostitute-related reasons.
“‘Mr. Brandon, you have saved the world!’ the President said.
“‘I know,’ said Brandon.
“THE END.”
Yeah! What’s up with you guys assuming that when he says something, he actually agrees with what he says? He could be intentionally saying things he disagrees with! He could just be saying random shit for no reason! You have no way to know!
Bagelsan, you’re going to need a bigger trophy cabinet to store all your Internets.
*bows* What can I say, douchebaggery is very inspirational! Just be glad I never got around to describing how his eyes change colors with his moods, or mentioning how he’s secretly rich and a genius, or using the word “throbbing.” 😀
“Just be glad I never got around to describing how his eyes change colors with his moods”
Totally off topic here, but does this ever actually happen? I never met any dude that it seemed to work for and this makes me a lil sad. >>
@Bagelsan: I like it.
Well it was about you. 🙂
You should have used “throbbing” it would have made it 100x better.
Molly Ren: I know a kid who says his eyes change colour, but I haven’t noticed it myself. (Not that I’ve really looked)
“Brandon picked himself up off the floor, his head throbbing. ‘What just happened,’ he said.”
Put this is the last post, somewhere: ?
“The Thai hooker was gone, along with his wallet, pants, luggage and dignity. Brandon rubbed his head, images of his crushing defeat slowly sinking in…”
MRAL was sympathetic, “She was 5’10”, I totally could beat her,” he offered.
Totally off topic here, but does this ever actually happen? I never met any dude that it seemed to work for and this makes me a lil sad. >>
It’s sort of true for me – my eyes normally look a muted goldish-greenish-greyish-brownish color, but if I’ve had a good cry anytime in the past day or so, the green comes out much, much more than the other colors, so that my eyes seem to change dramatically into very bright green. It’s actually a consequence of the skin around my eyes being redder than usual, but people notice the increased greenness even when the increased redness is too subtle to see, so I can pretend to have magical fanfiction mood-ring eyes, even if the only moods they convey are “pretty sad” and “everything else.”
Well, at least when Legolas leaves you for Jack Harkness your tragic eyes will look totally bangin’! (Don’t worry; in the next chapter both Batman and Han Solo fall deeply in love with you, and probably Sephiroth too, so you’ll be fine.)
Bagelsan, you just accidentally explained something – the kid I know who reckons his eyes change also tries to make his hair look like Sephiroth!
@Magpie: Oh dear. Does he do martial arts, too? I briefly took Tae Kwon Do with a guy who liked to gel his hair up DragonBallZ style for belt tests… And yes, I was ashamed on behalf of all white people/anime nerds. :p
No, he doesn’t do martial arts, and he was a little bit younger with the Sephiroth thing. He’s discovered Magic now (and the girl who plays it at the game club). He still believes the eye colour thing, though.
Did the guy only gel his hair up for the tests? Not all the time? Dearie me!
“I briefly took Tae Kwon Do with a guy who liked to gel his hair up DragonBallZ style for belt tests… ”
I meet people like this all the time through work. The girl version is just as disconcerting as the boy version.
Well, at least when Legolas leaves you for Jack Harkness your tragic eyes will look totally bangin’! (Don’t worry; in the next chapter both Batman and Han Solo fall deeply in love with you, and probably Sephiroth too, so you’ll be fine.)
Hee. The best part about this is that my boyfriend and I have a running joke about him secretly being Batman. I think I will indeed bounce back quickly if I get to have him AND a young Harrison Ford!
@Pencunim: Taking martial arts doesn’t automatically make you a better fighter. I took co-ed ju-jitsu and every woman was unable to even keep me in holds without me breaking free easily. And this were women who have been training for years. The women in the class couldn’t even trip me nor could they force me into a vulnerable position. They were basically fighting a brick wall. They put more strain and damage on themselves then they inflicted on me. And just to make sure I didn’t end up hurting them, I held back and used only enough force to defeat whatever they were doing (holds, grapples, throws).
Yeah, right.
You are the toughest, strongest, most butch and indefatigable motherfucker to ever stride the earth, and armies step aside lest you get annoyed.
I know the post is old, but I say, what’s the big deal? If women want to do it, I don’t see why they shouldn’t. Only request though, I’d like to see female-only combat units; just out of curiosity. As it is something relatively ‘new’, I’d just want to see how they’d cope, instead of assuming —through a PC mentality— there’d be no difference. I want to see it, and then I’ll nod & smile in total approval. 🙂
Have you heard of the Vikings?
Have you heard of the USSR?