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.
Aristotle, while massively influential in western thought, also believed the sun revolved around the earth. He was wrong about many, many things.
Aristotle was a misogynistic shithead for the ages. NWO can’t even dream of matching Aristotle’s misogynistic shitheadedness. We’re talking about the man who convinced Western science for hundreds of years that women were “misbegotten” men. He is perhaps the paramount misogynistic shithead of all time.
“Aristotle, while massively influential in western thought, also believed the sun revolved around the earth. He was wrong about many, many things.”
This a thousand times.
Yes, he may have laid down some of the framework for many things that we take for granted today, but let’s not overpraise the guy. Some (if not most) of his stuff has long been refuted.
(Betting ten monopoly dollars NWO believes that rocks have a desire to get to the center of the universe, and that Galileo is wrong and evil)
DragonsBeHere — “Im glad. We need more folks like your grandfather, no bs.” — I somehow doubt you’d like him any, for one the moment you said “trained to kill” he’d reprimand that no he was trained to defend. And what’s with ignoring my cousin? Teaching middle schoolers is way more like a war zone than fixing TVs (TVs don’t tend to throw shit after all) knowing when not to loose his cool is definitely what makes him any good at it.
To the MRAs lurking — A man? Teaching?! Yep, that does actually happen.
I believe the Association of Women Lawyers also has a firm pro-scented candle policy.
@Argenti
“…he’d reprimand that no he was trained to defend…”
All the more reason why my sentiment about him is fitting. In case anyone is looking to pitch a fit, what I said was that we need more folks like him. Im not ignoring your cousin, his service is greatly appreciated as well, I simply chose to leave him out of my posts.
Citation sorely fucking needed. The NAWL is a voluntary private association (not that suing over the actual bar has historically been incredibly effective either). Lawyers are largely free to form private organizational groups like anyone else. There are right wing legal groups, christian legal groups, etc (one of the more prominent examples is the Christian Legal Society). I don’t see how an association of male lawyers with comparable functions to NAWL would be even close to unconstitutional…
Now on to other issues, I am anti-war and anti-militarism. I don’t see participating in anything other than genuine strict self defense in terms of violence against persons as ethical, let alone laudatory. If there were a draft, and I was eligible for it, I would refuse to participate in any position that would aide the military. I would chose the option of federal prison and a permanent bad mark on my record rather than conform with a draft. I have known people who made that choice in regards to Vietnam, and consider it to have been a great act of courage and ethical integrity. Saying that I need to serve in the military to have an opinion is, from the perspective of someone like me, saying that I need take up bank robbery before I have any opinions about bank robbers and their relationship to society. It is a total and complete bullshit argument. It also denies that those who can’t or refuse to partake in the military complex are full citizens completely capable of taking part in making decisions around foreign policy, government use of force, etc.
There are a shit ton of ex-military people who work jobs, I don’t think this is even close to factually correct in a lot of situations. Though I admit to having somewhat mixed feelings and complex issues around social re-intigration of former soldiers (not all soldiers are comparably situated from the outset, those who join due to desperate social conditions are not in the same league as those who join for idealogical reasons or out of a general desire to harm other people/groups of people), your view is probably the bleakest of all. Do you really think that no former soldiers can be re-integrated into society? What are you going to do with them then? Isn’t there a star trek episode about some lunar penal colony for soldiers or something? Is that your plan?
Oh, right, I missed this bit.
OWLY
GET A FUCKING CLUE
NAWL WAS FOUNDED
WHEN MOST BAR ASSOCIATIONS DID NOT EVEN ADMIT WOMEN
THEY WERE MOSTLY ASSOCIATIONS OF MEN LAWYERS
AND THEY WERE NOT ILLEGAL
SEE ALSO
WHAT DARKSIDECAT SAID.
There.
Aristotle argued that men are more advanced than women because they have more teeth. This was accepted for centuries until someone actually counted and discovered that men and women have the same number of teeth.
(Why does having more teeth make you more advanced? Because life forms with more teeth live longer, and also men’s ability to grow extra teeth is proof of their hotter blood. Look, they didn’t have science yet, he was doing his best.)
@Darksidecat
“Do you really think that no former soldiers can be re-integrated into society?”
No sir, and you are correct. In fact, Im glad you touched on it, I didnt think anyone here would. They absolutely have to be reintegrated. The whole “difference in mindset” thing, from my original post.
DragonsBeHere — The point I was making, and I think darksidecat was making, was that plenty of soldier reintegrate fine already. My cousin’s looking forward to summer vacation because the best part of teaching? June, July, and August.
Shaenon — “Look, they didn’t have science yet, he was doing his best.” — Plato, iirc, thought pregnancy was the result of mixing menstrual blood and semen, sounds absurd now that we know it’d be nearly impossible to get pregnant while menstruating, but makes sense if you look at other mammals. Of course, that’s no excuse for acting like men and women are different species >.<
Meanwhile, Plato argued that women should be allowed to rule and serve in all the same capacities as men.
Well, you’ve moved from saying MRAs should be stigmatized and shamed out of existence to saying that they should just be subservient to feminists. That’s an improvement, I guess.
@Argenti
Noted. Do you agree, then, that we should leave the soldiering to the soldiers?
Well, Plato argued that the best women should be allowed to rule and serve in all the same capacities as the best men, even though they wouldn’t be as good at it because women are just naturally less awesome.
I mean, for his time, he was practically a radical feminist, but by any modern standard he was still a sexist douche.
IR/FF, we can’t expect all MRAs to make the important contributions you have, like Prego Punchfest.
Well, not out of existence actually. More to the point of self-immolation. They aren’t actually erased from existence, not even the Social Justice Arsenal can do that yet.
Do you agree, then, that we should leave the soldiering to the soldiers?
That…would be true by definition.
Assuming that you have room for a single drop of humanity in that sea of dogma, do you place any limits on mockery as a tool to advance social justice? Like, if a divorced father starts sobbing and pouring gas on himself do you think about giving the dick jokes a rest?
I’m just curious how deep this Social Justice mockery theology has burrowed into you.
Like, if a divorced father starts sobbing and pouring gas on himself do you think about giving the dick jokes a rest?
PREGGO PUNCHOUT
@katz
Ugh, it never ends, eh? Not here, anyway
Oh, great, PreggoPunchoutReview is here again to play Fight The Imaginary
Thing That Nobody Actually Did. I guess that opulent Aryan horse of his is must be very tall – the elevation makes it difficult for him to think clearly.
“PREGGO PUNCHOUT” — and didn’t we just do “no dick jokes” like twice, yesterday? Maybe Thursday and that’s technically two days ago now, but goddamned recently. No, ideologuereview, we do not find humor in dick jokes.
DragonsBeHere — “Do you agree, then, that we should leave the soldiering to the soldiers?” — If you mean the actual soldiering, that’s tautological, so I’ll assume mean programs for reintegration since it’s what your main points have been about. Yes, I think such programs should be left to soldiers, and their families, to decide what’s needed — I’d say just soldiers but then I fear the suicide rate would continue to go unaddressed.
Btw, I think decisions about what programs are needed should always be left to the group who’d be benefiting from them, be they veterans, mentally ill, homeless, or any/all of those (or any other group). Actually listening to their requests would get us a lot further than, idk, the OP quotees complaining that women can’t serve.
@Argenti
Sense in a sea of turds. Im reminded of a quote from one Perry Farrel- “Want to know what our oceans are like? Get in the bathtub, take a big dump, and start swimming around”. He was talking about pollution, but Im sure you get my drift.
Anywho, you say “Actually listening to their requests would get us a lot further than, idk, the OP quotees complaining that women can’t serve.” And yet we have this blog here.
“And yet we have this blog here.” — The military would call it down time. Things around here are generally funny, lighthearted mockery of absurd idiocy (eg “SCENTED FUCKING CANDLES”), or serious commentary on fandom things (eg LoTR).