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.
@Tulgey Logger
“This is an example of the Massive Gynocracy how? Explain, Owly, or just shut the fuck up already.”
Is there an association of men lawyers? No.
Would such an association be unconstitutional, (against the law)? Why yes it would.
—————-
“But Owly sees right through their clever ruse! No, the New World Order, for all that it fools most men most of the time, cannot deceive a man of his superior intellect.”
To rule any given society, or even the world the solution is always the same. Make laws that strip the wealth and power from the strong and intelligent. Give tastey little tidbits of wealth/power to the weak followers while the big boys retains the real wealth/power. In essence, make law’s that dictate the weak have all power over the strong. The weak are so much easier to control and will easily submit for a little protection and provision.
Didn’t Ben Franklin say something along the lines of, any society willing to trade freedom for protection deserves neither? Nicely done ladies. The gang at the top is most appreciative for your zealous cooperation.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/rockefeller-and-rothschild-banking-dynasties-join-forces/
Welcome to the new world order.
Dragonsbehere:
Except that they didn’t have printers yet, or Office Max, what you are describing is literally what happened after the Second World War–the 1950s were one of the most prosperous times in US history, and millions of veterans took part in this boom by engaging in commerce and manufacturing.
…Are you trying to say that veterans are incapable of ever living normally again? Do you…know any veterans? They’re not white-haired anime antiheroes, they’re human beings.
@suspiciouscate
“That only makes sense if you’re defining “man-hater” as “hates any man, any where, for any reason” and non-”woman-hater” as “likes some woman, somewhere, who perfectly follows my rules”. See the difference?”
So women define what constitutes what? Women dictate what actions are acceptable? Women decide the actions of men? What they should feel? What they should do? What they should think? What they should say?
Like Aristotle said,”women do quite well under tyranny.”
In their ideal world, it’s going to be like ancient India: they kept the lower classes out of education and called them stupid. They barred them from learning the Vedas and entering the temples, and called them unspiritual. They barred them from the best wells and the clean spots in the rivers and ponds, and called them dirty.
I never cease to pity those who are seemingly unable to conceive of human beings as multidimensional individuals. Sometimes I think they play too many video games and think all human beings can be reduced to one attribute and can be interacted with in a sequence in order to receive the desired outcome. Like filling their “Nice Guy” bar should unlock “girlfriend mode”, or women are strong in reproduction so they should stack all their points there and not spread them out elsewhere. I think it leads to the meritocracy thinking that people with money and power must have worked to get it since in video games everyone starts out the same (take WoW for instance).
I play a lot of video games (as does my feminist husband) so I am not saying it is a cause so much as a metaphor. Maybe because of their inability to understand the wide range of human behavior and interaction they fall back on the simplistic view like what is seen in video games.
Most of the time I can keep an amused emotional distance from the whole MRA hot mess,but not when they start insulting my mother, who now lies at rest in a National Cemetery, in her own right, not just because she was married to a veteran. Was she in a combat unit? Of course not. Neither were many male veterans. Combat is only the front end of war, there are also a zillion vehicles of various kinds to fix, maintain and transport, lots of training to do, supply chain management, and even a ton of clerical work. People who enlist, as my mother did, present themselves for evaluation and give whatever they are called upon to give. And that gives them a share of the honor. Even if they are not combat infantry, harm can still come their way. A good many soldiers die in accidents, even now. My son was in intel, yet still had to jump out of planes and got hurt and nearly died doing that, and the women in his unit faced the same danger. I know some MRAs are honorable veterans too, but most don’t seem to be. My mother was very pretty: shoulder length black hair and sparkling blue eyes, and utterly unspoiled as to vices, and just as in life, most MRAs will never be worthy to lie next to her. Not where she is now.
RE: trisexual
It’s an old David Bowie reference, from when he was once asked about his sexuality. (Or so the story goes.) He responded he was trisexual.
…now THERE’S a bit of trivia I never expected to be relevant in a troll argument. (Though gay, bi, and tri aren’t gender identities, so I’m not sure how they relevant.)
And yeah, no, in the USA, trans folk except closeted and without medical transition can’t serve. I know this for fact.
NWOSlave:
Which book is that in? I’m familiar with most of the works of Aristotle, and I can’t place the quote. Google searches just led me back to this thread.
Also, tell me about George Lincoln Rockwell. You seem a little thick for Francis Parker Yockey.
If they’re so strong and intelligent, why can’t they prevent this from happening?
To be fair to NWO (yeesh, never thought I’d type those words), this is a pretty accurate paraphrase of Aristotle
– Book V of Politics
NWO’s endorsement of this view is of course awful and misogynistic as NWO is wont to be, but Aristotle did say that.
Office Max? Ignoring the anachronism, service apparently makes you qualified to handle middle school students, or at least, that’s what my cousin who was guarding the war when it fell is doing now. Also, one of my WWII veteran grandfathers spent about 5 decades fixing TVs, retired with the digital revolution in the 90s, and then went back to work as a security guard at a retirement home. If that last bit sounds remotely like something being trained to kill would help with, it wasn’t, it was mostly escorting dementia patients back to their rooms.
The cousin? He worked odd jobs for most of the 90s while getting a history degree, idk for sure, but I suspect at least one of them was “sold shit”.
Yeah, but this is about the social order and the hierarchies thereof, not about gender as such. He’s completely misunderstanding Aristotle’s points.
I’m sorry, it cracks me up every time NWO gets angry about the Association of Women Lawyers. It’s so random.
I dunno, Shaenon, the idea that women’s fertility drops dramatically at 26 so if you haven’t had kids by then OMG PANIC is giving NWOs usual odd obsessions a run for their money.
To be fair to Aristotle, I’m sure he had it in him to be a misogynistic shithead, too.
Owly: don’t think I don’t notice your complete evasion of my points.
There’s FEMALES! And they’re LAWYERING! THEY MUST BE STOPPED!
I am sure there is not, nor has ever been a firm or association of only male lawyers. Nope, never happened.
I was going to comment that history hasn’t exactly proven Aristotle’s statement, since women seem to have done rather poorly under tyrannies as compared to more democratic forms of government, but you’re absolutely right that that’s not a fair summary of what Aristotle actually wrote.
You know, there are two law firms in my town with only male attorneys. I better go report this to Big Daddy.
Well, that’s odd. I went into the streets and shouted that those firms were oppressing women, but I’ve yet to hear any sirens. NWO, how can this be?!
Nwo said:
Is there an association of men lawyers? No.
Would such an association be unconstitutional, (against the law)? Why yes it would.
Um, no? No it wouldn’t. People would just make fun of it. That’s all.
Also, unconstitutional =/= against the law. Things that are unconstitutional are in the set of things that are against the law, but the opposite is not necessarily true.
Despite your denialism, male disposability remains a valid sociological phenomenon, especially in the Western world. Why were men barred from getting on the Titanic’s lifeboats? Why are “women and children” mentioned in death tolls as a special, more valuable group?
– Greg Thompson
@VoIP
“…what you are describing is…”
What Im describing is nothing of the sort, please dont put words in my mouth. The prosperity you are describing is a direct result of the war itself.
@Argenti
Im glad. We need more folks like your grandfather, no bs.
Also, NWO, if you’re not interested in protesting Bilderberg (thanks for the heads-up on that amusing circus of protesters, David; those Bilderberg guys are rich assholes so they should be getting jeered by someone more than just Alex Jones when they congregate), I have just learned that President Obama has officially proclaimed the month of June as “Pride Month for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community.”
They seem to be slightly shy about it, because I didn’t see anything on the white house website, but here’s a news story about it with a link to the official proclamation and YouTube video.
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/gaysouthflorida/2012/06/video-and-proclamation-president-barack-obama-the-white-house-celebrate-lgbt-pride-month.html#storylink=cpy
I’m sorry they forgot to mention the trisexual community, but anyway, it’s a whole gay month of official QUILTBAGgity goodness sponsored by Your Government. That’s gotta piss you off something awful, I bet. What is this world coming to?
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL