Men’s Rights Activists regularly complain that it is mostly men who serve in the armed forces, and that it is mostly male soldiers who are killed and injured in service to their country in wartime. MRAs also complain that, in the United States, only men have to sign up for the draft – though this is more of a formality than anything else, as the draft has been dead for decades and there is virtually no chance of it being resurrected any time soon.
MRAs love to cite the dominance of men in the armed forces as a prime example of what they call “male disposability,” and somehow manage to blame feminists for it all.
But it’s not feminists who are trying to keep women from becoming soldiers, or serving in combat. While some MRAs support the idea of women serving in the army, and having to register for the draft the same as men do, many others scoff at the very notion of women as soldiers, mocking their alleged female “weakness” and in some cases denigrating the service of women now in the armed forces as being equivalent to attending “day care camp.” (Not exactly.) These MRAs may complain that men bear the brunt of the costs of war. But they don’t actually want women to serve.
Not that it makes much of a difference, because the MRAs who do supposedly want women to share the same responsibilities as men aren’t doing shit about it. You know who is? Feminists. The National Organization for Women, while opposing the draft, has long argued that if registration is required of men, it should also be required of women. NOW has also opposed the ban on female soliders serving in combat. (Not that it’s easy to draw a clear line between combat and non-combat positions on the contemporary battlefields.)
Meanwhile, a group called the Molly Pitcher Project, made up of University of Virginia law students and headed by feminist law professor Anne Coughlin, is assisting two female soldiers who are now suing the Pentagon in an attempt to lift the combat ban.
Do you want to know who is opposing them – aside from the Pentagon’s lawyers? Take a look at some of the comments posted in response to a Los Angeles Times article on the lawsuit. Note: The quotes below are pretty egregious; some deal with military rape in a really offensive way. (Thanks to Pecunium for pointing me to them.)
These aren’t “cherry-picked” from hundreds of comments; these are the bulk of the comments that were left on the article.
Are any of these commenters MRAs? Maybe, maybe not, but certainly their misogynistic “logic” is virtually identical to that I’ve seen from misogynist MRAs opposed to women serving in combat. One thing they are clearly not is feminist.
If MRAs, or at least some of them, truly want a world in which men and women share equally in the responsibilities of military service (and both have equal opportunties for military leadership), they need to challenge the misogynists — within their movement and without — who argue that women simply aren’t fit for the battlefield. And they need to support the feminists who are actually trying to make a difference — instead of standing on the sidelines crying foul.
I don’t hold out much hope that this will ever happen. MRAs are much too enamored with their fantasies of male martyrhood.
To be fair, a lot of martial arts people are creepy and appropriative about China rather than Japan.
I really don’t know why I was being nitpicky. Not ideal, perhaps. Though I suspect it’s related to the same thing being said of China*, to express a similar thought.
Yeah. Ditto “traditional _____ medicine”.
*Yes, China has a long history that is reasonably well recorded, but modern China as a unified whole and a single country is still reasonably new. Not sure where the line is in going too far in the other direction, of creepy fascination bullshit and special exceptions.
What makes me uncomfortable about all this is that I love learning about other cultures. I brought this up, Rutee, when you and I were arguing against that horrible MY PILATES MAKES ME SPIRITUAL BECAUSE IT IS LIKE YOGA EXCEPT NOT poster, and it still bugs me–I know there’s a line between thinking that something is neat on the one hand and appropriating it on the other, but sometimes I don’t know where that is.
Oh, I have one: the “Mists of Avalon” view of Irish culture. Do you remember how huge that was in the late 90s?
Actually a lot of hippie and/or pagan ideas about Celtic culture common in America make this Celt scratch her head in slightly irritable confusion.
I’m of Irish descent on my mother’s side, and I remember being slightly squicked out when I learned what Wiccans thought of the Irish. It was the absolute lack of concern for historical veracity that got to me.
@Pecunium, articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/18/local/me-gay-military18 (article’s rather militaristic for my taste, but you get the point). Up until extremely recently, being queer was legally grounds for a dishonorable discharge, and less than honorable discharge was the norm prior to 1993 http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/09/navy_clears_gay_wwii_veterans.html
Also, nameless, the combat ban regarding women in the US is still in effect http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/us/2-women-sue-over-armys-combat-ban.html
RE: CasssandraSays
I was a Japanese minor. OH GOD THE WTFERY. Especially since we blundered in purely by accident, and stayed because our sensei was AMAZING. We were like the only folk there not because of anime fandom. And and… I could bitch forever.
Cassandra: To be fair, a lot of martial arts people are creepy and appropriative about China rather than Japan.
Ever read about how, katanas are just better In the sword trade (and to a different degree in the kitchen cutlery one too) there is a fetishistic belief that Japan makes the best blades: EVER!
@ LBT
Some dorky kid once told me very angrily that I had no right! to interview any band from Japan if I hadn’t proved my devotion by learning to speak Japanese. I LOLed, a lot.
(It was especially funny since two of the people I was interviewing speak English.)
Luckily, even though my Japanese classes had a shit ton of nerds in them, they were majority Korean nerds. So you could get your anime obsessions and scifi talk on without the weird fetishization shit. I had a pair of classmates (one of whom was white, the other was Korean-American) who tried to turn every exercise in Star Wars jokes.
I’m really loving how that guy thinks that only the female who engaged in a sex act that resulted in pregnancy should be punished. Not sexist at all.
I, as an advocate of men’s rights, have absolutely no problem with women serving on the front line and I can assure you that most MRAs have the same view as me. Picking out a few quotes means nothing (especially if it’s just after they have lost access to their kids). As I understand it government policies are not made because of MRAs feelings about this issue but society’s. Society’s possible reaction to women dying on the front line has been given as a reason for the ban on a number of occasions. In fact there are many women who don’t want to see women on the front line.
Forgive me for saying this but, “I’m going to fight for the right to die on the front line.” seems a very male thing to say. I would never respect a man who might say such a thing, so why should I respect a woman who says the same. (Although, as I said, in principle I do agree that rights are not things which anyone should have the power to take away. Banning women, or men, from anything is wrong).
It a pity that no one wants to debate different opinions on the issue without blaming everything on men.
As to the title “MRAs would rather complain about “male disposability” than work to enable women to serve in combat”, feminist organizations focus on history and society’s attitudes towards women, they don’t focus on men’s right issues (for example child custody). Since when have women’s and men’s organizations been working together? Why on earth would anyone interested in men’s rights spend their time promoting women’s. I could just as easily say, “Feminists are more interested in talking about the problems women have to face in bringing up children by themselves, rather than working towards proper shared parenting laws”.
dsc: Yes I know that non-PIV sex was grounds for a dishonorable discharge. I also know that, even under DADT it was almost never done. The cost, and embarrassment was too great when any number of administrative measures; or lesser courts-martial, would serve.
Merely being queer (or gay) isn’t grounds for a charge, and being straight is no defense.
Article 125 UCMJ.
“(a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient
to complete the offense.
(b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall by punished as a court-martial may direct.”
Elements.
(1) That the accused engaged in unnatural carnal copulation with a certain other person or with an animal. (Note: Add either or both of the following elements, if applicable)
(2) That the act was done with a child under the age of 16.
(3) That the act was done by force and without the consent of the other person.
Explanation.
It is unnatural carnal copulation for a person to take into that person’s mouth or anus the sexual organ of another person or of an animal; or to place that person’s sexual organ in the mouth or anus of another person or of an animal; or to have carnal copulation in any opening of the body, except the sexual parts, with another person; or to have carnal copulation with an animal.
The thing is, all offenses under the UCMJ have the all important line, “) Any person found guilty of… shall by punished as a court-martial may direct.”
A dishonorable discharge requires a general court martial. It can’t be given to someone administratively. (see <a href =http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ucmj.htm#SUBCHAPTER%20IV.%20COURT-MARTIAL%20JURISDICTION Jurisdictions of Courts Martial (Articles 17-21).
It is completely possible, through some complicated hoop jumping, that a commander might try to discharge someone by using Art. 134 (the catch all) to argue that a pregnancy “prejudiced the good order and discipline of the service” and discharge someone, but I don’t think a General Court Martial could be successfully convened; esp. with the somewhat greater protections afforded accused military members than civilians (military “grand juries” have defense counsel with subpoena powers and the right to cross-examine).
“I could just as easily say, “Feminists are more interested in talking about the problems women have to face in bringing up children by themselves, rather than working towards proper shared parenting laws”.”
The problem with that statement is that it is an easily disproven lie.
The OP is quoting the direct words and efforts of MRAs.
“Forgive me for saying this but, “I’m going to fight for the right to die on the front line.” seems a very male thing to say. I would never respect a man who might say such a thing, so why should I respect a woman who says the same. (Although, as I said, in principle I do agree that rights are not things which anyone should have the power to take away. Banning women, or men, from anything is wrong).”
It must be confusing to live inside your head.
“It a pity that no one wants to debate different opinions on the issue without blaming everything on men.”
Who is blaming everything on men, and how? Show me. Otherwise this statement is as full of crap as every other uninformed bigoted statement about how feminism is all about blaming men for everything.
“The OP is quoting the direct words and efforts of MRAs.”
We don’t know that they’re MRAs, just that they express the same garden-variety misogyny, and that some MRAs have said very similar things about women in the military.
Tulgey, that is a distinction without much difference. We can easily find the same exact sentiment on the “reasonable” AVFM boards and other MRA sites.
Bostonian: I don’t think so. I think, actually, it’s a very important distinction. MRAs are the most virulent aspect of a much larger problem… the rampant misogyny in the culture.
Merav made a post recently about how she was suddenly made to see that my hanging out on manboobz wasn’t me playing piñata with fringe-idiots, but dealing with a pervasive strain of sickness in the larger culture.
It would be nice to think these guys in the LATimes are less mainstream, that they are AVfM sorts, hanging out in internet fora, etc. But they aren’t. They are just regular joes. Not living in a basement. Not “going their own way”, but rather believing that shit and being otherwise normal about it.
That’s the part that disturbs me. Not so much the Spearhead, and the other people on the edges, but the people who are closer to the middle. The one’s who think declaring every woman who hasn’t had her period to be presumptively pregnant. Who think that being pregnant is grounds for being fired (or punished… see Nameless and the “dishonorable discharge… yes, he’s a moron, but he’s not alone).
you’re right. ranting and raving about how all women are worthless, vacuous whores is totally a reasonable reaction to losing a legal battle (and ignoring how your obvious anger management issues might have contributed to it is totally healthy and normal)
in delusional backwards land, i mean.
Citation needed.
Are you illiterate? We are not imputing to you responsibility for things far outside your grasp, only pillorying you for your own words.
Yet you slowbros say it’s feminists who hate men.
That’s because child custody isn’t a men’s rights issue; men have a disproportionately high track record of victory when they fight for custody, considering how infrequently men are primary caretakers.
You’re a fucking lackwit, you know that? Even you don’t think there’s anything to debate on women serving, and yet…
Because the few issues that affect dudes are principally there because women aren’t respected.
I can’t possibly see how a part of the code that makes sodomy illegal will be disproportionately applied to gay people =.=
Pecunium, when you can find a single fucking case of one hetero discharged under these policies, among the tens of fucking tens of thousands of queer people given less than honorable discharges under these policies prior to 1993 (DADT actually reduced less than honorable discharges, as discharging for violating DADT then became the norm for anti-queer discrimination instead), then bring this line back again. Until then, fuck right the fuck off with this homophobic apologist nonsense. The entire purpose of these rules is to punish queer people, and so was the entire effect.
DSC: I, personally know of two. The spouses weren’t happy with them cheating on them, and turned them in for violations of Art. 125. They could do that because they weren’t in the service, and oral/anal sex were legal in Calif.
You can think I am being an apologist, that’s your right, but the fact is that being queer, per se, wasn’t a court martial offense. You can be pissed off all you like about it, but that does’t actually change the law (you know, that thing you are studying) which is what I was talking about. I got a long set of lectures in Basic about just what I wasn’t, legally, allowed to do with anyone.
The UCMJ has a number of anachronistic things (big surprise) since it was passed in 1948 to bring uniformity to the two separate legal codes of the Army and the Navy, and it’s, in lots of stupid ways, one of which was that non PIV penetrations were seen as an abomnation; completely independently of the ways in which homosexual acts were treated.
Rutee: I can’t possibly see how a part of the code that makes sodomy illegal will be disproportionately applied to gay people =.=
Yes, it was. And then DADT made it possible to make it an administrative discharge, which had it’s own problems. The services were also horridly unfair in how/when they applied it (I know a woman who was told she’d be discharged for violating 125 just as soon as Desert Storm was over, but they needed her too much then to let her go. She raised a stink and made them do it before. She said that if it was that big a deal, she’d point out the hypocrisy. She was administratively discharged, no court martial).
But that’s not what was said. What was said was that the UCMJ made being queer something which could get one a Dishonorable Discharge. That’s not true, and it never was.
Being queer and having a non-PIV sex life could, but being just being queer can’t, as a matter of law, and never could
Which is what I was addressing.
No, just being known to have engaged in queer fucking. Huge fucking difference you heterosexist ass.
Some laws are unjust. And we absolutely should be fucking enraged about them. Oppressed people’s anger does not invalidate their criticisms of oppression and legal bias. Also, fuck you with that condescending bullshit about me studying the law. If you think my goal in studying the law is to swallow down and excuse unjust and oppressive laws and tell oppressed people to stop fussing about them, you are absolutely fucking mistaken.
Congratulations, that’s one of the most ridiculous bits of homophobic hetero splainin I have ever seen in my life. You think the idea that only PiV is not an abomination is detachable from anti-queer oppression? HAFUCKINGHA. Do you even think before you write this total and utter bullshit?