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.
Before you answer the point I’m not making, I’m not saying that the USSR could have beat the Nazis on its own. It’s debated, but I think probably not.
Why would it be 50/50? None of us are advocating the draft; it’s safe to assume that more men will join the military than women for the foreseeable future.
@Shora: Here are the requirements for men and women for passing the PT test:
http://www.military.com/military-fitness/army-fitness-requirements/army-basic-training-pft
In fact, the requirements have dropped since I was in. It was 42 pushups, 56 sit ups and a two mile run in 16:30. I was 19 when I did basic so I fell into the 17-21 range.
The Vichy accommodation of the Nazis–and, worse, their use of the Nazi regime as an excuse to carry out their own oppression of the Jews–is one of the least-told parts of WWII (right up there with the USSR’s badass female troops, in fact). There’s a movie out about it right now, Sarah’s Key.
Uh, I woudn’t call over 2,000 snipers a “few detatchments.” I also wouldn’t call 800,000 female soldiers “a few.” Yes, there were over 800,000 female members of the Red Army during WWII. On my father’s side of the family, every generation of women has served in the military, in some capacity, since the October Revolution.
We all somehow managed to survive the Vagina Death, despite every last one of us serving in combat environments. .
And it’s not like, even in the case of a 50/50 gender split, the military couldn’t place people in positions according to their personal strengths and weaknesses, amiright? Maybe a unit that spent a lot of time carrying heavy crap around would end up mostly male, maybe the majority of snipers/drivers/fighter pilots etc. would end up female, I dunno. I imagine that the US military already has some kind of mechanism in place to sort people into useful jobs based on their physical, mental and psychological attributes, right? It’s not like every dude can bench a tank anymore than every woman couldn’t lift 50 pounds to save her life — I would hope that people would not be randomly assigned even regardless of sex. :p
@Voip: Why would you not count Japan? They were part of the Axis powers. Was it because it was mainly Americans, Chinese and Koreans that fought the Japanese?
World War 2 was not fought on one front. There was the pacific theater, eastern front and the western front.
Americans were also better equipped and had more supplies than both the Japanese empire and the USSR. Better supplied typically means less loss of life. The number one resource the Soviets had was manpower.
From a death perspective, yes the Soviets died at a far larger rate than the US and the British but this was due to being overwhelmed by German technology and Soviet soldiers not having the proper equipment. Soviets died at a far greater rate due to malnutrition, disease, enemy fire and being a prisoner of war.
Each side did their part. The Americans freed France while the USSR freed Poland (not really since the USSR helped turn it into a communist puppet state).
Again, military history really isn’t the point here as I was only stating that women should be allowed to enter into combat roles, become a submariner and get recruited into the special forces as long as they can complete the requirements the men have to follow.
*puts on thick accent* In Soviet military, the Vagina Death kills enemy troops!
😀
*I blame all the grading I did today*
So I roll my eyes at vaginadude, then see the “What about the BEARS?”, then think, what about the bears’ vaginas, then think about all the female mammals in the worlds with vaginas who you know never hail the V (loathliest ad campaign evah), and never douche (because that’s what this lunk is talking about, rite?), and somehow do not die of terrible vaginal infections.
The I see all the srs talk about women in the military.
And I’m still stuck over here wondering at the vast ignorance of so many men (and WOMEN) about basic human anatomy.
Comes to that, isn’t the human mouth one of the biggest repository for germs and stuff? What happens to the poor people who cannot brush and floss twice a day while in the trenches? FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE OMG!
@Nova: By no means is 800,000 women a few. However compared to the total loss of life for the soviets…it was. Men died at over 20x the rate of women.
@Bagelsan: If you want equality, than I think a 50/50 split is appropriate. But how nice of you to think of men should be the “luggers” of war.
Also, the military does have a mechanism in place already and it says that women don’t meet the requirements for combat roles. I would like to see this changed and I assume you do. So if you want women to serve in that capacity…then they can lug their own supplies when on the battlefield.
For some lovely mini-biographies of WWII Soviet ladies who just completely ran out of shits to give about staying home, and started killing Nazis instead, this site is pretty great; a few examples:
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/litvyak.html
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/pavlichenko.html
@Moewicus:
The point about the IDF is also funny. Over the course of the thread, Demonspawn goes from claiming that Israel de-integrated their forces to saying “Looks like women are not allowed in all combat operations. Thank you for proving my own point.” Emphasis mine. Hurray for goalpost moving, also known as that thing creationists love to do.
The IDF is even going to have a whole weapon system operated by women:
http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/middle-east/israel-paves-the-way-for-killing-by-remote-control
Aw, someone isn’t so good at reading, is he? It’s cool, I’m sure the military has a use for people with no grasp of context too! 🙂
To be extra super clear, if you want an overall 50/50 split (or whatever your current “equality” goalpost is this time) then there is nothing saying that every single particular type of job must then have a 50/50 split. If some task requires a ton of upper body strength women will likely be underrepresented numerically, although they would still be present, while for other tasks like shooting very accurately or pulling a dozen G in a cockpit men would likely wind up in the minority. If you sort a group of physically fit adults by height or weight you’ll end up skewing male toward the upper end, and that male skew would likely play out in units that required physically large people — but this doesn’t make that unit either “luggers” or all male, obviously.
But yeah, Brandon, let’s pretend that I totally want male soldiers carrying all the female soldiers’ purses or whatever. XD
@Bagelsan: It is clear you never actually enlisted. When you go to MEPS you take a test. Then you are given a list of jobs that 1) the branch of service you are enlisting into needs filled and 2) ones that you are qualified for. From their you choose what job you want to do. If the requirements for one of those jobs you want is to lug heavy equipment…then guess what you will be doing.
No one forces you into a military role (unless you are dumb enough to allow the branch of service to pick it for you…which you will get the shittiest job they have).
My point being is, if you sign up for a combat role position, you damn sure better be able to shoot people, breach doors and hike mile after mile with a heavy sack on your back.
The only time people don’t get to pick their MOS or Rating is when they get drafted. That is why lots of men enlisted during Vietnam so they didn’t get a job forced on them if they got drafted.
Lastly, purses? Are you kidding me? What kind of condescending crap is that? I would rather have carried a 10 pound purse then lug a 80 pound pack and a 30 pound heavy machine gun.
Brandon; Your tone says you’re arguing with Bagelsan, but your words say you agree with him.
@Shora: The point is that Bagelsan is incorrect in how recruitment happens. The military doesn’t select your job, you do. So if the military opens up all jobs to women, then those women will be making the choice to enlist in those jobs.
The military just doesn’t go…you infantry…you fighter pilot…you HR desk jockey. You make the choice at what job you want if you qualify for it.
Why would you not count Japan? They were part of the Axis powers. Was it because it was mainly Americans, Chinese and Koreans that fought the Japanese?
I’m not counting the fight against Japan because I was comparing the US involvement in Europe (in the Western Front) to the USSR’s involvement in Europe (on the Eastern Front). Japan is not in Europe.
World War 2 was not fought on one front. There was the pacific theater, eastern front and the western front.
I’m getting a PhD in Modern European history with a focus on National Socialism. This year, I’m taking a course in the advanced historiography of Western Europe from the Glorious Revolution through the newest debates around the Second World War. I’m also grading for a course on military history, although that ends in 1815. I recently presented a panel paper on the German racial ideologue Hans F. K. Günther and the role of India in his thinking about race. Thanks for telling me, but I think I’ve heard by now that World War 2 was fought on more than two fronts, and that each army did their part.
Remind me what it is you do again?
Lol, yes, thank you! I’m pretty sure Brandon just described exactly what I was getting at… Increased female enrollment in the military will not mean that women are suddenly getting placed into roles they are too physically tiny for just to make every job 50/50 female, or anything like that, anymore than men who enroll currently get randomly shunted into completely unsuitable positions. The women who would be assigned to combat positions would presumably be the women who can handle them, just like how it works with men. :p
I am dexterous and smart, but also all of 5’3″ and I dehydrate easily, so I doubt I would do well schlepping around a hundred pounds of stuff in the desert for days on end*. But I know other women who would be freaking excellent at that, and so they would be the kind of person who winds up in hiking-around-all-day type combat positions.
*My unsuitability to combat is not due to my vagina, in short. A man with similar traits would probably also suck at a physical combat kind of role (maybe he and I could hang out in small spaces and do medical or communications work, whatever. :p)
Brandon; What bagelsan was saying was that he was sure there was a mechanism in place so that people would go different places according to thier strengths. He did not know exactly what that was, but he was sure it existed.
You confirmed that. You get a list of what needs to be filled and what you are qualified for, which is exactly the kind of mechanism Bagelsan was talking about. Like I said, you two are in agreement.
Really? Unsuitable women can do whatever they like?
Aw, you don’t even read your own comments, do you?
Her. Sorry Bagel-san!
Also, ninja’d 😛
Yeah, I’m not terribly knowledgeable about the military but considering there aren’t fighter jets full of incompetents raining out of the sky on a daily basis I suspect our military has at least some form of screening process when hiring. XD
‘Sall good. I’ve been called worse than “male” on the internet! ;p
Obviously, you’re a woman! /bad joke snark